To speak, or not, to the JDD since its takeover by the far-right journalist Geoffroy Lejeune and the end of the historic editorial strike: faced with this dilemma, members of the government procrastinate and diverge.
“Everyone makes their choices in conscience”, declared Monday morning on RMC the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune, while his colleague Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, Secretary of State in charge of the City, granted an interview to the JDD this Sunday, in the first issue under the leadership of Geoffroy Lejeune.
“We can talk about everything, but not with anyone, or at any time”. Figure of the left wing of the executive, Clément Beaune has clearly distanced himself from the approach of Sabrina Agresti-Roubache.
For her part, the Secretary of State, appointed to the government during the last reshuffle, invokes freedom of expression and the need for pluralism to justify her choice: “Pluralism is accepting confrontation”, explains her during the interview, invoking the spirit of Charlie Hebdo, and claiming to be “daughter of Cabu”, named after the cartoonist murdered in the January 7, 2015 Islamist attack on the satirical newspaper.
A position at odds with those of Clément Beaune who, still on RMC, “regrets” that the JDD has lost “its historical line, its values, its DNA” since the arrival of Geoffroy Lejeune and the takeover of the newspaper by the billionaire Vincent Bolloré with reputedly ultra-conservative ideas.
The Minister of Transport is not the only one to express reservations about the “choice” of Sabrina Agresti-Roubache.
The Secretary of State for Europe, Laurence Boone, explained on LCI on Monday that the new editorial line of the newspaper, previously classified on the center-right, is not her “cup of tea at this stage”.
As to whether she would give interviews to the JDD in the future, Laurence Boone was more cautious. “It does not make you want,” she first replied, before then specifying, in a message published on the “X” network (formerly Twitter), that she would go “everywhere to defend the positions of the government”.
Close to Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache regularly visited the set of the continuous news channel CNEWS when she was still a simple deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône.
The Secretary of State for the City went to the channel, also owned by Vincent Bolloré, for her first interview as a member of the government, a few days after the reshuffle.
“Matignon was not notified beforehand of this interview,” assured AFP a source within the executive, recalling that “members of the government normally warn before expressing themselves in the media”.
Many left-wing leaders have deplored the Secretary of State’s approach, accusing Macron of “accelerating the trivialization” of the newspaper.
Several voices from the National Rally, on the other hand, welcomed this first publication of the new JDD formula.
08/07/2023 16:22:22 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP