France's only national Sunday newspaper this weekend published its first edition under the leadership of a controversial far-right editor whose appointment prompted an unprecedented and lengthy staff walkout.
Sunday's publication came as a surprise as it had been scheduled to appear in mid-August, ending several weeks of paralysis and missed issues since staff walked out on 22 June.
Geoffroy Lejeune's appointment to the post of editor-in-chief at the Journal du Dimanche (JDD), one of France's biggest selling papers, triggered a mass strike by staff that lasted 40 days and only ended on Tuesday.
Lejeune, 34, was until recently editor of far-right weekly Valeurs Actuelles, which in 2021 was found guilty of racist hate speech.
He endorsed provocative far-right media commentator Eric Zemmour during the latter's campaign to become president last year.
Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the strike was the longest in French media history since a 28-month stoppage by staff at Le Parisien daily that began in 1975.
A large number of employees are expected to resign in protest at the arrival of Lejeune, whose rise to prominence underlines the rightwards shift of the country's media and politics.
Wrong photo
The 32-page edition of the paper, which is an institution in France known for high-profile interviews across the political spectrum, devoted its front page on 6 August to insecurity and judicial issues following the fatal knifing of a 15-year-old boy in northwest France in July.
🔴 Vous l'attendiez, la voici !
— Le JDD (@leJDD) August 5, 2023
🗞️La Une du Journal du Dimanche du 6 août ⤵️
➡️«Nous ne sommes pas des faits divers»
Lettre ouverte de familles de victimes au président de la République pic.twitter.com/gQRScipeJz
However, the photo chosen for the front page of the newspaper was not the right one.
It was taken by Sud Ouest daily newspaper during a white march organised in memory of another teenager, Enzo.
The relatives of this teenager, who died at the age of 16 after being hit by a car, paid tribute to him on 21 January in Hinx, southwestern France.
This iconographic error was pointed out by several observers, including Socialist MP Philippe Brun.
"I was at the white march for Enzo. The photo doesn't correspond to our white march," Brun tweeted on Sunday.
"The JDD got the wrong Enzo and put up a photo of a young person hit by a car in the Landes region in January!"
J'étais à la marche blanche pour Enzo. La photo ne correspond pas à notre marche blanche. Le JDD s'est trompé d'Enzo et a mis une photo concernant un jeune renversé par une voiture dans les Landes en janvier ! pic.twitter.com/W5O64nxLW1
— Philippe Brun (@p_brun) August 6, 2023
Sunday's edition was produced mainly by freelance journalists and "volunteers".
When contacted by French news agency AFP, Lagardère News, the subsidiary to which the newspaper belongs, explained that it had "chosen a symbolic front-page photo to illustrate the distress of families faced with atrocity. Road safety is part of this and represents all the other battles".
The Lagardere Group – which owns the JDD, Paris Match magazine and Europe 1 radio – is being taken over by French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, who is reported to hold ultra-conservative views.
French ministers
Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, France's new secretary of state for cities, was the first member of government to grant an interview to the JDD under its new leadership.
But France's Minister for Transport Clément Beaune did not support his colleague's initiative.
"We can talk about anything, but not with just anyone", he said on Monday in an interview with RMC radio.
Agresti-Roubache argued in the JDD: "Pluralism means accepting confrontation."
(with AFP)
