The editorial staff of the daily “Les Echos” on strike to defend its “independence” vis-à-vis its shareholder LVMH

The main French economic daily, The echoes, is absent from newsstands, Friday, June 2, for the first time since 2007. Its editorial staff began a 24-hour strike on Thursday evening. In general meeting, it was approved with 218 votes against 3 and one abstention, according to the society of journalists of the title. The society of journalists (SDJ) expresses concerns about the independence of the title.

In March, she had already protested against the surprise departure of the editorial director, Nicolas Barré, seeing it as a “brutal eviction by the shareholder”the luxury group LVMH owned by billionaire Bernard Arnault, following“items that would have displeased”.

“No risk” assures the boss of the group

On Thursday, she accused the management of the Les Echos group of “emptying of its substance the right of veto for journalists on the appointment of an editorial director provided for in the independence agreement”, signed at the end of 2007 between Les Echos and LVMH. A vote must take place by the end of June. According to the SDJ, the list of voters presented by the management for this future election “exceeds]the scope of the permanent drafting of Echoes“. She fears a maneuver favoring abstention, which would be favorable to the validation of the shareholder’s candidate.

The CEO of the Le Parisien-Les Echos group, Pierre Louette, explains that he refuses to operate “a sorting between voting journalists and non-voting journalists” and have designated the electorate “defined by law for professional elections of representatives of the staff”, he replied to AFP. He assures that“no risk” does not weigh on the independence of Echoesand say “to regret” the strike, which “is never a good solution”.