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French paper ends strike as far-right editor takes helm

Journalists at France's sole dedicated Sunday newspaper announced on Tuesday they were halting one of the longest strikes in the recent history of French media, on the day a controversial editor aligned with the far right took up his post as editor in chief.

Published: 1 August 2023 16:01 CEST
French paper ends strike as far-right editor takes helm
The logo of French weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) (Photo by Martin LELIEVRE / AFP)

Journal du Dimanche (JDD) staff said they were throwing in the towel aware that their decision would mean that they would either leave the paper or have to work under its new leadership.

The strike since June 22nd over over the appointment of Geoffroy Lejeune, 34, as new editor-in-chief has meant that the influential weekly has now missed six consecutive issues.

The JDD’s SDJ journalists’ association said that agreement had been reached with the paper’s owners, the media arm of French conglomerate Lagardere Group, for the strike to end.

It acknowledged staff “would not have won” a prolonged standoff with Lagardere.

Lejeune was until recently editor of the far-right weekly Valeurs Actuelles and endorsed far-right media commentator Eric Zemmour during his campaign for the presidency last year.

“Today, Geoffroy Lejeune is taking up his post. He will walk into an empty newsroom. Dozens of journalists are refusing to work with him and must leave the JDD,” it said.

“In the next hours we will be confronted with a painful dilemma — to stay or to go,” it added.

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said the action — which lasted 40 days — was the longest strike in French media since a 28-month strike by staff on Le Parisien daily that began in 1975.

Lagardere said in a statement that the JDD’s website would return on Tuesday and the print edition from the middle of the month.

“The agreement also provides for the setting up of support measures for journalists who wish to leave the editorial staff,” added the group.

The controversy has erupted as conservative billionaire Vincent Bollore is in the process of acquiring Lagardere Group, which also owns Paris Match magazine and Europe 1 radio, after a successful takeover bid.

Bollore, a conservative Catholic from northwest France, has been gradually expanding his empire to take in TV channels and now print media.

The JDD, which has weekly sales of around 140,000, has in recent years toed a centrist line and been seen as generally sympathetic to the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

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FRENCH ELECTIONS

French election breakdown: TV clash, polling latest and ‘poo’ Le Pen

From the polls latest to the first big TV election clash, via a lot of questions about the French Constitution and the president's future - here's the situation 17 days on from Emmanuel Macron's shock election announcement.

Published: 26 June 2024 08:15 CEST
French election breakdown: TV clash, polling latest and 'poo' Le Pen

During the election period we will be publishing a bi-weekly ‘election breakdown’ to help you keep up with the latest developments. You can receive these as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

It’s now been 17 days since Macron’s surprise call for snap parliamentary elections, and four days until the first round of voting.

TV debates

The hotly-anticipated first TV debate of the election on Tuesday night turned out to be an ill-tempered affair with a lot of interruptions and men talking over each other.

The line of the night went to the left representative Manuel Bompard – who otherwise struggled to make much of an impact – when he told far-right leader Jordan Bardella (whose Italian ancestors migrated to France several generations back): “When your personal ancestors arrived in France, your political ancestors said exactly the same thing to them. I find that tragic.”

But perhaps the biggest question of all is whether any of this matters? The presidential election debate between Macron and Marine Le Pen back in 2017 is widely credited with influencing the campaign as Macron exposed her contradictory policies and economic illiteracy.

However a debate ahead of the European elections last month between Bardella and prime minister Gabriel Attal was widely agreed to have been ‘won’ by Attal, who also managed to expose flaws and contradictions in the far right party’s policies. Nevertheless, the far-right went on to convincingly beat the Macronists at the polls.

Has the political scene simply moved on so that Bardella’s brief and fact-light TikTok videos convince more people than a two-hour prime-time TV debate?

You can hear the team from The Local discussing all the election latest on the Talking France podcast – listen here or on the link below

Road to chaos

Just over two weeks ago when Macron called this election, he intended to call the bluff of the French electorate – did they really want a government made up of Marine Len Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party?

Well, latest polling suggests that a large portion of French people want exactly that, and significantly fewer people want to continue with a Macron government.

With the caveat that pollsters themselves say this is is a difficult election to call, current polling suggests RN would take 35 percent of the vote, the leftist alliance Nouveau Front Populaire 30 percent and Macron’s centrists 20 percent.

This is potentially bad news for everyone, as those figures would give no party an overall majority in parliament and would instead likely usher in an era of political chaos.

The questions discussed in French conversation and media have now moved on from ‘who will win the election?’ to distinctly more technical concerns like – what exactly does the Constitution say about the powers of a president without a government? Can France have a ‘caretaker government’ in the long term? Is it time for a 6th republic?.

The most over-used phrase in French political discourse this week? Sans précédent (unprecedented).

Démission

From sans précédent to sans président – if this election leads to total chaos, will Macron resign? It’s certainly being discussed, but he says he will not.

For citizens of many European parliamentary democracies it seems virtually automatic that the president would resign if he cannot form a government, but the French system is very different and several French presidents have continued in post despite being obliged to appoint an opponent as prime minister.

READ ALSO Will Macron resign in case of an election disaster?

The only president of the Fifth Republic to resign early was Charles de Gaulle – the trigger was the failure of a referendum on local government, but it may be that he was simply fed up; he was 78 years old and had already been through an attempted coup and the May 1968 general strike which paralysed the country. He died a year after leaving office.

Caca craft

She might be riding high in the polls, but not everyone is enamoured of Le Pen, it seems, especially not in ‘lefty’ eastern Paris – as seen by this rather neatly crafted Marine Le Pen flag stuck into a lump of dog poo left on the pavement.

Thanks to spotter Helen Massy-Beresford, who saw this in Paris’s 20th arrondissement.

You can find all the latest election news HERE, or sign up to receive these election breakdowns as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

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