The newspaper “La Tribune” will launch a Sunday edition in October

2023-08-20 18:12:00

“We want to be the Sunday daily, without political color, which brings together all French people,” said Jean-Christophe Tortora.

By MP with AFP “La Tribune Dimanche” will be directed by journalist Bruno Jeudy, recently ousted from “Paris-Match”. © JOEL SAGET / AFP Published on 08/20/2023 at 6:12 p.m.

The economic newspaper the Tribunerecently bought by billionaire Rodolphe Saadé’s shipowner CMA-CGM, will launch a general Sunday edition on October 8, its president, Jean-Christophe Tortora, announced on Sunday at Figaro. The Tribune on Sunday will be led by journalist Bruno Jeudy. It will compete with the other two national generalist Sunday newspapers, The Sunday newspaper (now run by far-right journalist Geoffroy Lejeune) and the Sunday edition of the daily Le Parisien/Today in France.

The fourth national newspaper to be published on Sundays in France is the sports daily The Team. “We want to be the Sunday daily, without political color, which brings together all French people,” said Jean-Christophe Tortora. Established in 1985, the Tribune is now an exclusively digital weekday daily, having abandoned its daily paper format in 2012, then weekly in 2020.

This announcement comes as the JDD experienced a historic 40-day strike between the end of June and the beginning of August after the announcement of the arrival of Lejeune at its head. Many have seen behind this appointment the hand of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, whose Vivendi group is in the process of swallowing Lagardère, owner of the JDD. Worried that the title will take a sharp turn to the right, many journalists have decided to leave.

“I am not taking advantage of a market opportunity”

According to Mr. Tortora, the draft The Tribune on Sunday is several months old and has not been set up to compete with the JDD. “I am not taking advantage of a market opportunity linked to the situation at JDDbecause the discussions around our Sunday daily project were initiated with Rodolphe Saadé in February”, he assured.

This launch is further proof of Rodolphe Saadé’s ambitions in the media sector, where he is very active. Based in Marseilles, the powerful shipowner CMA-CGM, which he manages, has taken control of the Tribune at the end of May via the acquisition of the HIMA group from Jean-Christophe Tortora.

In October, CMA-CGM, which recorded a record net profit of more than 23 billion euros in 2022, had already become the owner of the group. Provence (regional dailies Provence et Morning run). He then invited himself, at the end of 2022, to the capital of the audiovisual group M6, then, at the beginning of April, to that of the online video media Brut.