It’s simple: the newspaper is called Le Journal. It is digitally launched this Wednesday by Laurent Joffrin, the former boss of L’Obs (which was still called Le Nouvel Observateur) and Libé, with a rather… simple idea: to defend his ideas. Joffrin, a supporter for some years of a republican left, responsible and secular (among others), believes that this current of thought has run out of relay; he is drowned out by the noise of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his rebellious megaphones, which crush any somewhat nuanced debate on the left. The former press boss intends, with Le Journal, to offer a space for the “unnupeized” left, a space for commentary and opinions.
Le Point: Why launch a new newspaper, when the landscape is already saturated?
Laurent Joffrin: This project was born out of a kind of anger. I have been commenting on the news for a long time, but we have never sunk as low as today. The public debate is in full regression, it turns to cacophony, the rational arguments are ceaselessly covered by the invectives. The left, in particular, has lost its compass. She only obeys the ukases of La France insoumise and its extravagances. She sinks into radicalism. The whole left is being dragged down, and it has to be pulled out.
What is the model of your media outlet, Le Journal?
It takes two forms. First a daily letter, which I will have the honor of writing, with an editorial on the news and three ironic briefs. I will also talk about culture or international news. What matters is commenting on facts that tell us something about our vision of the fight for progress and reason. There will also be a site run by Jean-Paul Mari, former senior reporter at L’Obs, helped by a dozen people, including journalists who are beginning to join us.
Is it a free pattern?
Yes, even if we count on financial support. We work with a platform, Kessel, which manages about fifteen newsletters and knows how to monetize the audience, with paying subscribers or by finding selected advertisements. We will have a relatively qualified audience, so we will be able to choose advertisers.
The choice is therefore different from that made by Mediapart, whose model is based solely on paying subscribers…
Yes. Mediapart is a great success, but it is essentially based on exclusive information. This is what allows the conquest of subscribers. We are opinion media. We can hope that people are also interested in ideas, but an editorial will never make the buzz of a Cahuzac affair, for example! We still hope to attract a few tens of thousands of subscribers.
What ideas will you champion?
The editorial line is simple, democracy, the left must find their compass and their values: the Republic, knowledge, secularism, reason, social justice, ecological but realistic solutions, freedom of expression… It’s a line that few leaders and media defend today.
So you assume to launch a militant media…
Not militant. The Journal is above all an opinion medium. We do not seek, like a militant body, to enlist people or to make them vote for one or the other. We rely on the facts, because it is not a question of compromising on intellectual honesty, but we go beyond the traditional questions of the journalist (the who, the where, the how) to go directly to: what should he think about it?
It’s a fairly new model in France, where newspapers tend to separate the facts from the comments…
The added value of the Journal is the commentary, the analysis, the ideas. This is new, even if we find some examples on the right and on the extreme right. The line can be compared to that of Franc-Tireur, based on the idea that reason is a fight, but it is a paper newspaper and it does not claim to be of the left.
You are, on the other hand, clearly on the left, while the values ??you defend, such as the Republic or secularism, are shared with the right…
The Journal claims to be on the left, even if on the left, we will be told that we are on the right, because we defend social democratic values! But the notions of the Republic, secularism or even the primacy of reason all come from the left. They were worn by Jaurès, Blum, Mendès, Gisèle Halimi and even Olympe de Gouges, but they were abandoned.
Is your media also a way to counter social media, where anything and everything gets broadcast?
There is indeed a battle to be waged against conspiracy and the irrational. One of the first papers we published deals with the theme of the rise of the irrational in France. We realize that he favors the extremes, because people get used to the nonsense that is told to them, on the extreme right as on the extreme left. There are no more criteria of proof on social networks, we throw out anything and people believe it’s journalism. In a democracy, rational deliberation is essential, otherwise conflicts are no longer controllable. We need at least a method by which we can demonstrate that we are right and that the other is wrong, but we have abandoned intellectual honesty in the debate. Let at least we recognize the same facts!
It’s a disease that spreads a lot on the left?
Yes of course. When Mélenchon says “the police kill”, does he really believe that the police are made up of assassins? It can commit faults, even crimes, and it must then be punished, but overall, it protects people.
Does Jean-Luc Mélenchon twist the facts to better convince, a bit like Donald Trump?
The methods are indeed similar. Mélenchon almost claimed it by evoking left populism, a method by which everything must be conflicted. Is it substantiated, argued? It doesn’t matter, the important thing is to trigger the conflict. Look at the case of Sainte-Soline, it’s a caricature. Some say, “It’s all the fault of the police”, others say, “No, it’s the fault of the protesters”. However, if we go back in history, it was the demonstrators, in any case, the black blocs, who first attacked with Molotov cocktails and petanque balls. Then the police retaliate. We can, we must question the methods of maintaining order, judge the response disproportionate. It’s a more honest and nuanced position than saying “the police kill” or “the black blocs are responsible for everything”. This is a caricature of a debate.
Does the simplification of the debate explain, at least in part, the success of LFI?
Yes. There is a latent anger in society, which leaders like Mélenchon express in a summary and crude way. I think that’s a bad idea, because it makes things worse. But many people on the left have had enough. It’s not the left!
Your media is therefore at the service of the ideas that are rather defended today, on the left, by François Hollande, Bernard Cazeneuve, or even Carole Delga. Are you serving them too, or serving any of them in particular?
No, we make a newspaper, not a tract. We polemize, we argue, but we do not militate. I chat with everyone, and it’s crowded! Let’s not forget that the presidential election is in four years. The question of the men or women who should embody this current does not arise. We must first lead the fight of ideas, and the cultural fight.
