“It’s normal, it’s an orderly handover.” At the age of 71, journalist Edwy Plenel announced on Monday February 12 on France Inter that he was going to leave the management of Mediapartan investigative media outlet that he co-founded sixteen years ago. “I will continue to write for “Mediapart”, I will continue to be present through my pen, but I will not be the legal manager, the boss of the company”explained the current director of the publication, without revealing the name of his successor.
On March 16, 2023, Edwy Plenel had already raised the prospect of his withdrawal. “We are working on a coherent, supportive, caring transmission, so that we are in a position to be protective in the future. We are going to organize this, I have no ambition to hang on, this process is ongoing and it will be completed, without a doubt, in the coming year”he explained then, during a press conference.
“The miracle of “Mediapart” is that the team is essentially between 25 and 45 years old, I am 71. It is normal that it lives, independently of us”he emphasizes today.
From Cahuzac to #metoo
With his team, Edwy Plenel launched the Cahuzac affair at the end of 2012, named after the former socialist budget minister who was ousted after lying about his secret bank account held abroad. The online media has released numerous revelations on the #metoo movement, including testimonies on Gérard Depardieu, or more recently on the psychoanalyst Gérard Miller.
Edwy Plenel entered the newspaper The world in 1980, before taking the helm of its editorial staff in 1995. In the 1980s, several cases involving the French presidency and which he investigated – notably the attack by the French secret services against the Rainbow-Warriora Greenpeace ship which campaigned against French nuclear tests in Polynesia – had aroused the ire of President François Mitterrand.