the weekly is going through a difficult period

The satirical weekly will change its president on March 1, thus recording its fourth replacement in this position in a year.

1^er March, Érik Emptaz, 74, who writes the front page editorial every week, will become the fourth president of the Chained duck in one year. He will replace Jean-François Julliard, appointed just three months ago, who replaced Nicolas Brimo, appointed in July, who himself replaced Michel Gaillard, who had been in place for thirty years. Jean-François Julliard is giving up his place for health reasons, explains management. Érik Emptaz, editor-in-chief, is like the other three an old hand: he has been a member of the board of directors for 32 years.

The fictitious employment affair

Since a year, The chained Duck is going through a difficult time. First there was the case of fictitious employment of the wife of a designer, revealed by the journalist of Duck Christophe Nobili, traitor for some, whistleblower for others. The labor inspectorate rejected the dismissal procedure launched against him, but the weekly hopes for a favorable opinion from the Ministry of Labor by May. In any case, management wants “turn the page”even if it means going through a more tedious appeal to the administrative court.

In October, it is the former bosses, Michel Gaillard and Nicolas Brimo, who will be tried at the Paris criminal court, mainly for misuse of company assets. This does not provide good publicity for the newspaper which, since its creation in 1915, has refused press aid and advertising to preserve its independence. This newspaper, whose operations are considered archaic by some, saw the creation for the first time of a journalists’ union two years ago and in June brought two new journalists to its narrow board of directors.

Distribution decreasing

At the same time, the newspaper is facing a drop in its circulation: less 8% last year. The number of paper subscribers has also fallen. Currently, the Duck sells 230,000 copies per issue. For five years, management has blamed the decline in the number of kiosks but for Érik Emptaz, paper will continue to suffer and we really need to turn to digital. This is a change of strategy for a newspaper which has long believed that the Internet could cannibalize paper and had created, during the Covid crisis, a site solely to download the newspaper.

THE Duck will therefore launch a new site at the start of the next school year. It must be said that with only 10,000 digital subscribers, it is far behind Mediapart, which has 210,000. The competition is there.

Érik Emptaz recognizes the turbulent period, but this new presidential hat will not prevent him from continuing to deliver his weekly headline article.