The Lagardère group launches its weekly “JDNews”, in the midst of the sale of “Paris Match”

There’s a new kid on the block. A news magazine called the JDNews has been available since Wednesday, September 18. The 60-page magazine is sold for 2.20 euros and will be supplied with the Journal du dimanche (JDD) in a pack for 2.90 euros. Its circulation is estimated at 130,000 copies each week. The Lagardère group is launching it while it is in the process of separating from its weekly Paris Match. LVMH is set to acquire the magazine for 120 million euros. The sale is expected to be completed before the end of the month.

This will be a big loss for Lagardère, and above all a loss of influence. The Lagardère group is owned at almost 60% by Vivendi, which is headed by Yannick Bolloré. So creating a new weekly is a way to maintain power with politicians and industrialists.

But it is not about competing with Paris Matcha general title that mixes current events and people. The JDNews is rather closer to the Pointof New Obs or of Mariannewith investigations, interviews, files on politics, economics, science and culture. All under the sign of “freedom of expression” and of “restoration of the truth”as Laurence Ferrari, the magazine’s president, explains in the editorial of the first issue with Marianne on the cover.

JDNews offers sections “good news“, successes, major interviews with personalities from the political, economic and cultural worlds, an investigation each week as well as a section on culture, fashion and lifestyle. A tone and a prism that recall the continuous news channel CNews and the radio Europe 1, also controlled by Vivendi.

These media are regularly accused by left-wing personalities of promoting far-right ideas, which they deny. Moreover, incarnations of these media sign in the JDNewslike Pascal Praud, Philippe de Villiers or Michel Onfray.