FRANCE: Journalists at Le Monde newspaper go on strike in protest of heavy staff cuts

Record ID: 339417

  • Title: FRANCE: Journalists at Le Monde newspaper go on strike in protest of heavy staff cuts
  • Date: 15th April 2008
  • Summary: COPY OF FIRST EDITION OF LE MONDE NEWSPAPER RECENT EDITION OF LE MONDE NEWSPAPER
  • Embargoed: 30th April 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVAB0CTOQ2I2OGDVZB2YJKTMRVJJ
  • Story Text: Journalists at Le Monde newspaper go on strike against plan to cut jobs after Le Monde publishing group announced recently the decline of advertising revenues and the increased competition from other news sources.
    STORY : Journalists at Le Monde, one of France's most highly respected daily newspapers, went on strike on Monday (April 14) for only the second time in the paper's history in protest at heavy cuts in newsroom staff.
    Le Monde, read by some 2 million people every day, is one of the country's most influential newspapers with extensive contacts in the French establishment and an unwaveringly intellectual tone.
    But like other media groups, it has been struggling with declining advertising revenues and increased competition from other news sources including the Internet.

    "The crisis we are facing now has internal roots and is due to the failure of the strategy of development of the group carried on in the past several years, but it is also due to the French press going through a crisis," said Michel Delberghe, CFDT unionist at Le Monde.
    A new management team told staff earlier this month that the Le Monde publishing group would have to sell a number of titles and cut 130 newsroom staff at the flagship daily, including a quarter of its 340 journalists.
    Outside Le Monde building, protestors held banners reading "Le Monde devours its children" or "Le Monde on strike" and "No to 130 staff cuts."
    The paper has announced losses of 20 million euros ($31.64 million) in 2007 after a loss of 14.3 million euros in 2006. It has accumulated debts of 150 million euros.
    Set up in 1944 after the liberation of France from the Nazis, Le Monde ("The World") appears each day in Paris and some other big cities around lunchtime dated the following day, when it also becomes available in the rest of the country.
    The strike, which means Tuesday's edition will not appear, is the first time Le Monde journalists have gone on strike since 1976, when they stopped work to protest the acquisition of the daily France Soir by media tycoon Robert Hersant.
    It is the first time they have ever gone on strike in protest at a development within their own company.
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