Crisis in La Provence: Making your front page on Macron means risking your newspaper

2024-03-22 19:45:00

The editorial director of La Provence, Aurélien Viers, risks being fired because of the front page of Thursday March 21, because it is considered “ambiguous” and could implicate Emmanuel Macron. With the wind rising, journalists’ unions went on strike today denouncing “political pressure”.

It all started on Tuesday March 19, when the President of the Republic went to Marseille without warning, to announce an “unprecedented” anti-drug operation. He wants to “destroy the networks and the traffickers”, to “clean up”.

Two days later, La Provence published its issue of the day and headlined: “He is gone and we are still here…”, on a photo which shows two young men from behind, sitting on a low wall, trying to watching a police officer go by on patrol. And here is the drama. The management of the newspaper, owned by CMA CGM (Rodolphe Saadé), judges the front page “ambiguous” and threatens to dismiss Aurélien Viers. Apparently, she could “suggest that we were complacently giving voice to drug traffickers determined to taunt public authority, which in no way reflects the values ​​and editorial line of our newspaper”.

But in fact, the title takes up a testimony collected by the newspaper: “It’s funny, reacts Brahim, yesterday they found all the necessary means to supervise the president’s visit. He left, and we are still here, in the same problem”, we could read in the issue concerned. So why couldn’t we say it? On the networks, obviously, it provokes a reaction:

1) Macron sets up a crude communications operation on drugs.

2) Provence gives voice to the inhabitants who note that nothing has changed.

3) The owner of Provence, Rodolphe Saadé, billionaire and friend of Macron, fires the editorial director.

La Macronie. pic.twitter.com/mkTbjCXmzF

— Journal Fakir (@Fakir_) March 22, 2024

For its part, the daily’s editorial team voted for an “unlimited” strike against the dismissal of its director. They call for his immediate reinstatement and denounce “political pressure”. “This is unacceptable editorial interference, we cannot let this pass,” Audrey Letellier, delegate of the National Union of Journalists (SNJ), responded to AFP. “At a time when the CMA CGM intends to build a national media center”, this affair does not bode well.