Since noon, this Thursday March 23, and until the same time tomorrow, the new articles which appear on the website of Les Echos are no longer signed. Those which will appear in the Friday morning print edition will not be either. This is the form of disapproval chosen by the journalists of the business daily after their managing editor, Nicolas Barré, was dismissed on Tuesday from the post he had held for ten years.
” We are not fools “, protests the Society of Journalists in a press release published on Friday on its Twitter account. The body elected by the editorial staff thus intends to affirm its ” determination “ to uphold its independence, that the terms of the“brutal eviction” of Mr. Barré seems to them to have flouted. In a previous press release, the SDJ “could not help wondering about the link between this departure and the publication in recent weeks of several articles that would have displeased the shareholder”in this case the CEO of the LVMH group, Bernard Arnault.
Doubts that Pierre Louette, head of the Les Echos-Le Parisien group, had wanted to sweep away on Tuesday but that a press release officially announcing the next assignment of Mr. Barré to new functions, the next day, only reactivated . Indeed, it was Mr. Arnault himself who thanked the journalist for his career within the newspaper, “where he demonstrated his great editorial and managerial qualities”.
“Heavy, difficult, stressful”
“Another interference in the life of the newspaper despite the commitments made”criticizes the SDJ, which intends to enforce the procedures “hardly negotiated” when the title was purchased by the luxury giant in 2007. The dismissal of the editorial director is indeed supposed to be approved by the supervisory board, and the appointment of any successor subject to the editorial veto.
The episode did not fail to remind some of that of 2011, when LVMH announced the departure of Nicolas Beytout from the presidency of its media branch of LVMH, but also his appointment to a post of editorialist at the newspaper. “As it was a prerogative of the editorial director, and not of the shareholder, they had been forced to withdraw under the threat of a motion of no confidence”remembers a journalist.
After being completely unreachable on Tuesday, Nicolas Barré spoke to the editorial staff on Wednesday March 22 at the 3:15 p.m. editorial conference. Very moved, he thanked those who sent him messages of support. He also said his ” chance “ to have exercised the function of director of this “exceptional writing”which notably allowed him to be “the person who ensures the independence of the editorial staff, who acts as a screen when necessary. It’s normal, sometimes heavy, difficult, stressful, but it’s part of the job. “We all understood, even if he did not say so explicitly, that this departure was not by mutual agreement”assures one of those present at this meeting which ended with applause.
You have 6.54% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.