The French newspaper El Watan is at a standstill. From this Friday, July 29, the 130 employees, who have not received any salary for 5 months, are on an indefinite strike. Last March, due to unpaid social contributions, the State had the daily’s accounts blocked, which therefore finds itself unable to disburse funds and pay salaries.
The journalists but also all the other professions tried to resist until the end. Two days of strike per week, then three, then four, faced with the inability of management to pay wages, the indefinite strike was therefore declared from this Friday. Salima Tlemçani is a journalist and head of the workers’ union.
” It has a terrible impact on our morale, but afterwards, when you have an employer who does not move, you expect the worst, you tell yourself that the company is going to close. Since there was nothing, we went on an indefinite strike until there was a solution. »
El Watan owes 370,000 euros to the tax authorities. Blocked accounts, impossible to transfer property. 18 shareholders are now at the head of the newspaper. In particular Mohamed Tahar Messaoudi, also director of publication and who asks employees to be patient. Furious against the state, he believes that the blocking of accounts is an injustice.
“ I am very worried, I feel bad for our press. El Watan is apparently paying for its independence, its editorial line. Because we are really facing a situation of injustice. »
Last hope for the employees ofEl Watan : in Algeria, a law allows the release of salaries when a company is in financial difficulty. A court decision is expected in the next few days.
After 31 years of existence, the newspaper El Watan is therefore in danger. Like a new step after the newspaper stop Freedom in April, after arrests and convictions of journalists.
Director of the media laboratory at the school of journalism in Algiers, Belkacem Mostefaoui, believes that the entire press sector is dying out, that the state is going so far as to take control of the training of journalists. For him, the closure ofEl Watan is unimaginable.
It would be tragic because there would be a lack of pure air, of media oxygen, of this Algerian public space which has been dramatically broken, fractured. Since March 2019, the system has been moving in this direction.
Belkacem Mostefaoui, director of the media laboratory at the Algiers School of Journalism