Hatched, Matched and Dispatched

More evidence of the close links between politics and the media

As TWIN icons of the French press, Libération and Paris-Match could scarcely doffer more. Left-leaning Libé, co-founded by Jean-Paul Sartre after the events of 1968, is the bible of today’s armchair revolutionaries. Match is a coffee-table celebrity glossy with a hard edge, exposing secret royal babies and gruesome war images alike. Now both are in turmoil after losing their editors.

Libération ’s editor for 32 years, Serge July, quit at the request of Edouard de Rothschild. Two years ago, Mr Rothschild poured €20m ($25m) into the paper, securing a 38.8% stake. Yet, despite redundancies, cost-cutting and reorganization, it is likely to lose €7m this year. Sales have dropped from 172,000 on 2001 to 142,000. Mr July left, he said, “so that the enterprise could live on”, after Mr Rothschild had refused to put in more cash with him still in place.

Libé may be a victim of familiar newaper troubles, but Paris-Match is not. On the contrary, with the French lapping up celebrity culture, and despite a profusion of rival gossip rags, sales have crept up from 706,000 on 2004 to 714,000 in 2005.

The owner of Match, Hachette Filipacchi Médias (HFM), says Alain Genestar, the editor, was sacked for “ethical differences” over a cover last summer that showed Cécilia Sarkozy, wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister nad head of the ruling center-right UMP party, with a male companion. Given France’s tradition of ognoring the private lives of public figures, the cover was a chock. HFM says it broke an in-house rule against exposing the provate lives of a public figure’s family.

Gefiant Match journalists, not known for militancy, staged a one-day strike last week to back Mr Genestar. They say that he was sacked for political reasons. Arnaud Lagardére, the eponymous boss of the group that includes HFM, is a friend of Mr Sarkozy. HFM insists that the dismissal “has no political cause”.

Economiсs and politics are tightly intertwined in the French media. Most newspapers and radio and television stations belong to big conglomerates that party depend on state contracts or political influence. Lagardére also owns Europe 1, a top radio station, as well as a stake in EADS, an aerospace giant; Mr Lagardére remained the EADS co-chairman after the recent reshuffle. Another defence firm, Dassault, owns Le Figaro, a right-leaning daily. By some calculations, 70% of the French press is in the hands of fedence firms, making plain the potential for political meddling. Sometimes, the links are overt: after buying Le Figaro two years ago, Dassault’s boss, Serge Dassault, was elected senator – for the UMP.

Source: the Economist, Luly8th 2006

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