Media monopoly in France: Billionaires from outside the industry invest in loss-making businesses Biden wants to put women in command of the US Navy for the first time

The “Journal du Dimanche” is the only independent Sunday newspaper in France, making it one of the most important voices in the Paris press forest. This coming Sunday, the “JDD”, as it is often referred to, will not appear for the fourth weekend in a row. The editors decided this week with an overwhelming majority of 96 percent of the vote. She protests against the appointment of a new editor-in-chief, Geoffroy Lejeune, who has been labeled ‘extreme right’ since he ran the ultra-conservative magazine Valeurs actuelles.

What has particularly upset the centre-right JDD editors are the actions of new owner Vincent Bolloré. The Breton financier, who calls himself a conservative Catholic, had made a fortune restoring African ports. In addition to the JDD, his media company Vivendi has also acquired other well-known titles from the Lagardère group, such as the weekly magazine “Paris-Match”, the radio station “Europe 1” and the live broadcaster “C News”.

They all lean politically to the right; “C News” has even been compared to Trump-heavy US broadcaster “Fox News”. Those media increasingly bear the signature of Bolloré, who is said to be close to the right-wing ex-presidential candidate Eric Zemmour. A year ago, the editors of “Paris-Match”, a formerly non-political magazine, published a “motion of no confidence” after Bolloré replaced the editor-in-chief he disliked politically.

The editorial strike at the “Journal du Dimanche” testifies not only to a dispute over the political direction, but also to a deep industrial crisis in which economic and political interests are very closely linked. Most of the Parisian media are hopelessly in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. The tabloid “Le Parisien” and the left-wing “Libération” lose up to 25 percent of their turnover every year. The left-liberal intelligentsia newspaper “Le Monde” and the conservative “Le Figaro” do not fare much better.

Survive thanks to state aid and rich men

They all only survive thanks to massive state aid in the form of all kinds of direct and cross subsidies that are not very transparent. For example, at the communist «L’Humanité» they account for 42 percent of the turnover. But, of course, this financial support also weakens their political independence from the state leadership – particularly from presidents like Emmanuel Macron, who sometimes even picks up the phone to read the authors of “critical” articles about the riot law.

The dependence on the direct newspaper owners is even stronger. Today, almost all of them are non-industrial financiers who have otherwise made billions in fortunes. For example, the luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault (LVMH) has taken over the leading French business newspaper “Les Echos” from the British publisher Pearson, which publishes the “Financial Times”. He also owns «Le Parisien». This previously inexperienced local newspaper almost exclusively carried the versions of the police and their minister Gérald Darmanin, a close confidant of Macron, in the recent suburban riots sparked by a deadly police shooting. Arnault, one of the richest people on earth with 149 billion euros, maintains close contact with Macron during joint dinners, for whose election he had also openly called.

Personal and political influence

Another media magnate with a ten-digit financial buffer, telecom investor Patrick Drahi (6.1 billion euros), who lives in western Switzerland, owns the main French weekly “L’Express”, the main live broadcaster BFM and, curiously enough, also the highly anti-capitalist “Libération”. The traditional newspaper “Le Figaro” in turn belongs to the heir Laurent Dassault (8 billion); «Le Monde» is controlled by Xavier Niel (5.7 billion), who made his fortune producing porn sites. He is known in Switzerland as the owner of the telecom company Salt. A year ago, the Marseille shipowner Rodolphe Saadé (35.6 billion) snatched the wildly popular regional newspaper “La Provence” from under his nose in the South of France; he has the right of first refusal for the second French business newspaper “La Tribune”.

The question of what drives these cunning high-earners to invest in the loss-making business of the French press is not at all clear. Because that is undoubtedly what it is all about, and this despite the widespread state support. The circulation and advertising income of French titles are declining rapidly. In the Wednesday edition, for example, “Le Monde” succeeded in not placing a single paid advertisement on 26 newspaper pages.

The new media tycoons are not interested in money at all, or only indirectly. Rather, they expect personal or – as the Bolloré case shows – political influence by owning well-known media titles.

An act of desperation

All these connections are brought to light by the strike at the «Journal du Dimanche». For those involved, it has an almost suicidal quality, at least something desperate. Individual editors mobilized 400 culture workers to appeal against the ultra-right editor-in-chief; they also use members of the government for the same purpose – although in doing so they risk playing Macron’s political game.

Bolloré sticks to ‘his’ editor-in-chief. With a personal fortune of 8.6 billion euros, he has more perseverance than the striking journalists. But when he’s had enough of his new media hobby, he won’t hesitate to drop the JDD. (bzbasel.ch)