The movement enters its second week at the Sunday Journal. The continuation of the strike was voted almost unanimously against the arrival, at its head, of the far-right journalist Geoffroy Lejeune. In total, 96% of voters voted for the continuation of the strike (89 for, 4 against, 3 who did not comment), details Friday, June 30 the society of journalists (SDJ) in a press release, specifying that a new vote will be held Saturday morning on the renewal or not of the movement.
Consequence of the continuation of the movement: Le Journal du dimanche, which had not appeared the previous week, will again be absent from newsstands on Sunday, a member of the SDJ told Agence France-Presse. This is the second strike resulting in the non-publication of the newspaper, after that of 2016, and the longest movement known to the editorial staff, according to former members of the newspaper.
The editorial staff of the JDD asks the management of Lagardère News, owner of the weekly, to “give up the appointment of Geoffroy Lejeune” and to “offer the editorial staff guarantees of legal and editorial independence”. These two demands do not seem close to succeeding: the management of the newspaper announced the arrival on Wednesday of Geoffroy Lejeune at the editorial office to present his “editorial project”, learned AFP from an internal source at the JDD.
Many observers see in the arrival of Geoffroy Lejeune at the head of the newspaper, closely followed by political and economic circles, the hand of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, with opinions deemed ultra-conservative. The latter steers the Vivendi group, a media juggernaut in France, which notably includes the Canal group and its channels C8 and CNews, as well as Prisma Media, the leading magazine press group, and the publishing group Editis.
Geoffroy Lejeune’s appointment came just after the European Commission gave Vivendi the conditional green light to take over Lagardère, a group to which Paris Match, Europe 1 and publishing leader Hachette also belong. “I made this decision alone. Neither Vincent Bolloré nor anyone from Vivendi were involved,” Arnaud Lagardère, leader of the group of the same name, denied in Le Figaro newspaper on Tuesday.
According to press reports, journalist Charlotte d’Ornellas, also marked on the far right and coming from Current Values, should join Geoffroy Lejeune at the head of the JDD.
Since these announcements, several calls for support from the JDD editorial staff have been organised, in particular a rally, under the aegis of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which brought together nearly a thousand people on Tuesday. A strike fund was opened to support the movement financially. More than 11,500 euros had been collected Thursday evening, according to the Twitter account of the SDJ of the JDD. A petition has also been launched on the change.org website. Friday morning, it had more than 32,000 signatures.
