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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.

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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POLITICS

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

New Caledonia's main international airport will reopen from Monday after being shut last month during a spate of deadly unrest, the high commission in the French Pacific territory said, adding a curfew would also be reduced.

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

The commission said Sunday that it had “decided to reopen the airport during the day” and to “push back to 8:00 pm (from 6:00 pm) the start of the curfew as of Monday”.

The measures had been introduced after violence broke out on May 13 over a controversial voting reform that would have allowed long-term residents to participate in local polls.

The archipelago’s Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their vote, putting hopes for eventually winning independence definitively out of reach.

READ ALSO: Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Barricades, skirmishes with the police and looting left nine dead and hundreds injured, and inflicted hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

The full resumption of flights at Tontouta airport was made possible by the reopening of an expressway linking it to the capital Noumea that had been blocked by demonstrators, the commission said.

Previously the airport was only handling a small number of flights with special exemptions.

Meanwhile, the curfew, which runs until 6:00 am, was reduced “in light of the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life”, the commission added.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced on Wednesday that the voting reform that touched off the unrest would be “suspended” in light of snap parliamentary polls.

Instead he aimed to “give full voice to local dialogue and the restoration of order”, he told reporters.

Although approved by both France’s National Assembly and Senate, the reform had been waiting on a constitutional congress of both houses to become part of the basic law.

Caledonian pro-independence movements had already considered reform dead given Macron’s call for snap elections.

“This should be a time for rebuilding peace and social ties,” the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) said Wednesday before the announcement.

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