“You don’t realize, but you don’t find Sophia Chikirou under the tread of a horse…” In 2018, Jean-Luc Mélenchon stepped up to defend his communications director, under fire from criticism for its management of the collaborative web TV Le Média. Former employees testify in “Additional investigation” to methods in contradiction, according to them, with the values advocated by La France insoumise.
According to the founders, the adventure promised to be exciting: an innovative web TV, with collaborative operation and crowdfunding, taking on committed journalism and defending values dear to the left, “humanist, anti-racist, environmentalist, feminist and collective”. Launched in December 2017 by people close to La France insoumise, Le Média was intended to be a alternative to the traditional media system, editorial line “completely open” and horizontal organization, without hierarchy.
“We must apply humanist principles”
“In what is commonly called, in business jargon, human resources management, we must apply humanist principles. advocated Sophia Chikirou, the one who co-founded it with the psychoanalyst Gérard Miller. However, testimonies collected by “Complément d’investigation” denounce management that is far removed from these values, and even brutal management. Would Sophia Chikirou, also director of communications for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s campaigns, behave contrary to the ideals displayed by LFI? Barely a few weeks after the first news, the divorce already seems complete between the president of the Media and the editorial staff.
“I hope in my life to never work again in a company that resembles the Media”, confides journalist Kévin Boucaud-Victoire, today editor-in-chief of the magazine Marianne. He denounces 14-hour days and long weeks when he was in charge of the Media website. According to him, his colleagues then said to themselves “exhausted” by work rhythms, “many complain about Sophia’s management.” He affirms that from the latter’s point of view, on the contrary, “it doesn’t work enough”, journalists are “wankers“.
“I saw people leaving crying (…). There were screams in his office”
Another journalist anonymously testifies to“a certain number of unspeakable things”, of people leaving crying, of discomfort, of screams in Sophia Chikirou’s office. He also mentions certain breaches of labor law, such as this “episode which marked quite a few employees: a sort of scabies epidemic” which would have caused “in any company” the intervention of a disinfection company. According to him, not only Sophia Chikirou “said no, because she didn’t want to spend money”, but moreover, “she asked employees to continue to come face-to-face to the premises. We were amazed. There, we see that there is a problem of toxic management.”
“Additional investigation” also obtained internal discussion threads from the Media. “Who are we sending to the hospital today?” writes Sophia Chikirou the day after the illness of an employee, who was transported to the emergency room. There is also this reaction to a request from journalists, who want the Media to make its “mea culpa” in a press release after the dissemination of false information: “They do it, the bookmark (sic) and shove it up their assholes, this bunch of shitheads.”
The political scientist Thomas Guénolé, a former close friend of La France insoumise today breaking with the movement, does not understand “this fundamental hiatus” : “How can we both have only humanism on our lips, and sharing, and generosity, and fraternity and, at the same time, treat people internally like shit?” Contested from all sides, Sophia Chikirou left Le Média barely six months after launching it.
Extract from “Sophia Chikirou, the queen of spades by Jean-Luc Mélenchon”, a document to be seen in “Additional investigation” on October 5, 2023.
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