2023-08-23 05:46:20
Geoffroy Lejeune, freshly in office after directing the far-right weekly Current values, provokes debate, controversy and psychodrama continuously. The latest concerns the interview given by the Secretary of State in charge of the City, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, in the first issue of the JDD under the rule of Lejeune, which she justifies by the freedom and plurality of expressions: ” We can’t have been Charlie, going to demonstrate and smashing freedom of expression today. Journalists are dead. I’m a daughter of Cabu. Me, in any case, it was never in my DNA.” The response from Gérard Biard, editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo, was not long in appearing, in the form of an editorial, first published on… X (ex-Twitter), owned by Elon Musk, the big bad genius who consorts with the Republicans (after having largely financed the Democrats) and who, in the name of an incomprehensible libertarianism in France, causes astonishing nausea under our skies.
That Gérard Biard is exasperated by “cynicism, amateurism and political ignorance”, recalling that Cabu has always fought the far right is quite fair and legitimate. That the editor of Charlie is angry at the all-out use of the so indispensable and brilliant satirical journal that has become a reference-refuge for all morons who want to justify their stupid ideas, all right. But Sabrina Agresti-Roubache does not develop far-right ideas in her interview, she does not promote the takeover by Vincent Bolloré of all the French media, she gives a banal interview to a newspaper run by an extreme editor RIGHT. Just as President Macron had given a river interview to Current Values in October 2019.
???? In Charlie tomorrow, an update from Gérard Biard on the statement of the Secretary of State @SabrinaRoubacheself-proclaimed “Cabu’s daughter” in Geoffroy Lejeune’s JDD: “Cynicism, amateurism and political ignorance do not excuse everything.” pic.twitter.com/huVcCJEg8I
— Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) August 8, 2023
Liberation benefited in 2022 from a loan of 14 million euros from Daniel Kretinsky, a Czech billionaire who also owns Franc-Tireur and Elle. The editorial lines of these three media, however, have nothing to do despite a common financial source. And it would be good to remember that the National Rally is an authorized party whose candidate rose to the second round of the last presidential election and which managed to send 88 deputies to the Assembly. Moreover, sales of Valeurs Actuelles have been falling since Geoffroy Lejeune changed its editorial line to make it a pro-Zemmour fanzine. Dare I go against the doxa? Do not panic ! The JDD version Lejeune opens the way to another Sunday newspaper which is not an opinion newspaper. The story of the JDD as we know it ends, another opens and we will see soon enough if the editorial choice will be a success – or not.
Unhealthy interference
The most bewildering part of this interminable controversy is to hear the former chairman of the supervisory board of Le Monde, Alain Minc, explain learnedly how the Secretary of State for the City has screwed up, and how much the change in management of the JDD is a danger for democracy, the press, France, Europe, with an emphasis that would almost make you forget the investigative book by Pierre Péan and Philippe Cohen, The hidden face of the World – From counter-power to the abuse of power (2003) where the networking at the heart of the State, the unhealthy interferences and the high-flying manipulations of the three leaders (Alain Minc therefore, Edwy Plenel and Jean-Marie Colombani) were serious and serious enough for the Republic for the case ended in mediation (the authors agreed not to proceed with any reprinting of the book while the three leaders withdrew their complaint for defamation).
Where were all these good souls, these last thirty years, when the party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen and taken over by his daughter did not stop convincing more and more French people from election to election? Where were these vigilantes of humanism when French citizens chose abstention? Where are these politicians, journalists, public figures hiding today who know how to use X so well to castigate the end of democracy, the fall of the Republic but who are incapable of being the force of political proposals to convince the French to believe in solutions and not vote out of exasperation, spite, pessimism and fear of the future?
#JDD #led #Abnousse #Shalmani