2024-03-25 17:01:44
Journalists from the daily La Provence ended on Monday the strike they had started on Friday in reaction to the dismissal of the publication’s director after the headline on Emmanuel Macron’s visit deemed “ambiguous” by management.
The management of this regional newspaper owned by the shipowner CMA CGM decided on Sunday to reinstate the editorial director, Aurélien Viers, and on Monday the employees chose to return to work.
At the end of a general assembly, 94 voters voted for the resumption, while 71 journalists voted in favor of continuing the strike movement.
In the morning, several dozen journalists took part in a rally in front of the daily’s premises, brandishing signs on which one could read: “Our news is not the work of a(r)amateur”, “freedom from the press to the article of death” or even “We cross-check the information, don’t cut off the heads”.
The crisis was triggered by the front page of Thursday’s daily, crossed out with the title “He (Emmanuel Macron, editor’s note) is gone and we are still here…”.
The management considered that this sentence, attributed on the inside pages to an inhabitant of an impoverished city of Marseille where the Head of State had gone on Tuesday for an operation against drug trafficking, could give the impression that the newspaper gave voice to traffickers.
Aurélien Viers was present in front of the newspaper on Monday. “I obtained sufficiently strong guarantees on Sunday to come back to work and tell myself that I could work with the editorial staff in complete editorial independence, without pressure,” he declared.
Concerning the front page he explained: “There was an error in writing a quote without knowing who the author is, there is an ambiguity (…) so I think we can recognize that. C “It doesn’t matter, we make 364 front pages a year, there may be mistakes made.”
“We are not an editorial team that has a hyper-developed social culture, but on the other hand on values, we do not want to compromise,” explained Sylvain Pignol, elected SNJ to the CSE, during the gathering, indicating that before 2023 , the regional daily had “only experienced one day of strike in its history”.
The headline about Emmanuel Macron’s visit “was nothing scandalous, it was perfectly ethically honest”, said Mr. Pignol.
La Provence is owned by the shipowner CMA CGM of billionaire Rodolphe Saadé, based in Marseille. After taking over the La Provence group in 2022, Mr. Saadé took a stake in M6, bought La Tribune and announced last week the purchase of Altice Media, parent company of BFMTV in particular.
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