“La Provence” journalists vote to end the strike

The journalists of Provence voted on Monday March 25 to end the strike that began on Friday, franceinfo learned from a union source. For the third consecutive day, the newspaper Provence did not appear this Monday, to protest against the dismissal of the editorial director. Sunday evening, management announced his reinstatement.

The editorial director was fired on Friday due to a headline after Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Marseille judged “ambiguous” by management. Two days after the Head of State’s visit to support a police operation against drug trafficking, the daily published on its front page a photo of a district of the Marseille city with the quote: “He left and we are still here”.

A “collective error” according to management

This layoff was supposed to last a week, but it was ultimately shortened. Management judged during this exchange that the editorial director was acting in good faith. “Very happy to return to work today within this beautiful editorial team of La Provence and alongside Gabriel d’Harcourt, [directeur général et directeur de la publication de La Provence]with the WhyNot Media team”wrote Monday on the social network X, Aurélien Viers. “Thanks for all your messages”concludes his message.

The management of La Provence assured franceinfo that there has been no turnaround in the situation, but only a desire to discuss with Aurélien Viers to find out if it was still possible to work with him. She maintains that by laying off the editorial head, there was not necessarily a desire to dismiss him, but to “take the time to analyze the dysfunction”. The management continues to point the finger at the front page of Thursday’s newspaper, which it describes as“collective error”.