Le Monde left rudderless after staff fail to back owners' preferred editor
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Version 0 of 1. The process to appoint a new editor of the French national daily Le Monde has been thrown into turmoil after the newspaper’s journalists rejected the proprietors’ choice of candidate. Le Monde, France’s biggest selling national newspaper, is – like the Guardian – one of the very few newspapers to give staff a say in who becomes its most senior editor. Three candidates for the job of editorial director had originally put themselves forward for the staff vote. But, last month, Le Monde’s conglomerate of corporate owners – who bought the paper in 2010 after a decade of crippling debt and near collapse – rejected those candidates and hand-picked their own man. Related: Guardian appoints Katharine Viner as editor-in-chief Their choice, Jérôme Fenoglio, has been at Le Monde for 23 years, joining the paper as a sports reporter and working across numerous sections before being made editor-in-chief of the website in 2011 and acting managing editor last year. Fenoglio needed to win a staff vote to take up the position and on Wednesday night his name was put to a ballot of current and recently retired staff – about 450 journalists. He had been widely expected to be endorsed. But he failed to receive the required 60% threshold to be appointed – polling only 55%. “Jérôme Fenoglio will not be the new editorial director of Le Monde,” said an article on the paper’s website just after the votes were counted. It was unclear how the process to find a new editor for the influential daily would now proceed or what role would be played by the papers’ trio of owners: the businessman Pierre Bergé, former partner of Yves Saint-Laurent; the telecoms tycoon Xavier Niel; and the banker Matthieu Pigasse. “We’re in unknown territory. It’s a test of strength between journalists and the shareholders,” one journalist told AFP. “It’s a crisis in the system,” said another. Le Monde, France’s centre-left paper of record, was launched after the liberation in December 1944 as an independent voice. It is fiercely protective of its editorial freedom. The three businessmen who bought it in 2010 signed an agreement guaranteeing its editorial independence. But journalists and editors expressed fury earlier this year when Bergé hit out at Le Monde over its part in revealing how HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes. The process to choose a new editorial director comes after Natalie Nougayrède, the first woman to run the paper, stepped down as executive editor and managing editor in May 2014. Nougayrède joined the Guardian last autumn as a columnist, leader writer and foreign affairs commentator. |