French newspaper faces mass departures over appointment of rightwing editor

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Journalists at one of France’s most influential newspapers have warned that dozens of employees will depart the Sunday publication after it named a far-right editor ahead of its takeover by billionaire industrialist Vincent Bolloré.

Journal du Dimanche (JDD), the Sunday newspaper of reference in France, has negotiated financial packages for staff willing to leave as part of a deal to end a six-week strike in protest at the appointment of Geoffroy Lejeune, previously editor of rightwing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, by parent company Lagardère.

Unprecedented in length, the strike had become one of the most vocal protests yet in France over the media influence of Bolloré. 

The billionaire’s Vivendi group is still in the process of buying Lagardère, and Lejeune’s appointment was seen as another example of the businessman marking his ideological stamp on the media outlets he controls or is in the process of acquiring, including rolling news channel CNews and the Europe 1 radio station. Both have lurched more to the right, focusing on what they cast as rampant crime and excess immigration. 

Vivendi executives have said that Bolloré had no hand in appointing Lejeune, who started in his position on Tuesday.

During the 34-year-old’s tenure at Valeurs Actuelles, the magazine was convicted by a court in Paris of publishing an article that contravened France’s anti-racism and hate speech laws.

Lejeune is also known for being close to anti-immigration politicians Éric Zemmour and Marion Maréchal, the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Lagardère executives have defended his appointment, saying he is a journalist with a “raw talent”.

Staff representatives at JDD admitted defeat, but said that dozens of journalists still refused to work with Lejeune and were set to leave. “For 40 days, we led a battle on all fronts . . . although we have brought public attention to the issue of newsrooms’ independence, in relation to our shareholder, we have not won,” they said in a statement.

JDD employs about 100 journalists, including regular freelancers and full-time staff. 

As part of the end of the strike, Lagardère’s management had agreed not to force any journalists to work under Lejeune while negotiating their departure, a person close to the talks said. Lagardère could not immediately be reached for comment, including on how the group plans to resume publishing JDD, although the company said in a statement that it would be back in print by mid-August and would go online before then. 

The end of the strike comes as EU antitrust regulators opened an investigation last week into whether Vivendi had infringed merger rules during the acquisition process of Lagardère. So-called gun-jumping, which can include exerting influence prematurely in a takeover before getting all the approvals for a deal, would expose Vivendi to fines.

Vivendi’s acquisition of Lagardère has, however, already won all competition approvals from the EU pending some divestments, so the separate investigation would not block the takeover.

Vivendi said in a statement that it considered that it had fully complied with takeover rules, and that the investigation into “suspicions of early implementation of Vivendi’s acquisition of Lagardère does not prejudge the existence of an infringement”.