Geoffroy Lejeune, freshly in office after leading the far-right weekly Current values, provokes continuous debate, controversy and psychodrama. The latest concerns the interview given by the Secretary of State for the City, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, in the first issue of the JDD under the rule of Lejeune, which she justifies by the freedom and plurality of expressions: “We cannot have been charlie, to have gone to demonstrate and to tear freedom of expression to pieces today. Journalists died. I am a Cabu girl. Me, in any case, it has never been in my DNA.” The response of Gérard Biard, editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdowas not long in appearing, in the form of an editorial, first published on… X (ex-Twitter), owned by Elon Musk, the big bad genius who spawns with the Republicans (after having largely financed the democrats) and which, in the name of an incomprehensible libertarianism in France, causes astonishing nausea under our skies.
That Gérard Biard is exasperated by “cynicism, amateurism and political ignorance”, recalling that Cabu has always fought the far right is quite fair and legitimate. That the editor of charlie be angry at the all-out use of the so indispensable and brilliant satirical journal that has become a reference-refuge for all morons who want to justify their bullshit ideas, okay. But Sabrina Agresti-Roubache does not develop far-right ideas in her interview, she does not promote the takeover by Vincent Bolloré of all the French media, she gives a banal interview to a newspaper run by an extreme editor RIGHT. Just as President Macron had given a river interview to Current values in October 2019.
Release benefited in 2022 from a loan of 14 million euros from Daniel Kretinsky, a Czech billionaire who also owns Maverick And She. The editorial lines of these three media, however, have nothing to do despite a common financial source. And it would be good to remember that the National Rally is an authorized party whose candidate rose to the second round of the last presidential election and which managed to send 88 deputies to the Assembly. Furthermore, sales of Current values fall since Geoffroy Lejeune changed its editorial line to make it a pro-Zemmour fanzine. Dare I go against the doxa? Do not panic ! THE JDD Lejeune version opens the way to another Sunday newspaper which is not an opinion newspaper. The story of JDD as we have known it ends, another opens and we will see soon enough whether the editorial choice will be a success – or not.
Unhealthy interference
The most bewildering part of this interminable controversy is to hear the former chairman of the supervisory board of the WorldAlain Minc, to explain learnedly how the Secretary of State for the City has screwed up, and how much the change of direction of the JDD is a danger for democracy, the press, France, Europe, with an emphasis that would almost make you forget the investigative book by Pierre Péan and Philippe Cohen, The hidden face of the World – From counter-power to abuse of power (2003) where the networking at the heart of the State, the unhealthy interferences and the high-flying manipulations of the three leaders (Alain Minc therefore, Edwy Plenel and Jean-Marie Colombani) were serious and serious enough for the Republic for the case ends in mediation (the authors agreed not to proceed with any reprinting of the book while the three leaders withdrew their complaint for defamation).
Where were all these good souls, these last thirty years, when the party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen and taken over by his daughter did not stop convincing more and more French people from election to election? Where were these vigilantes of humanism when French citizens chose abstention? Where are these politicians, journalists, public figures hiding today who know how to use X so well to castigate the end of democracy, the fall of the Republic but who are incapable of being the force of political proposals to convince the French to believe in solutions and not vote out of exasperation, spite, pessimism and fear of the future?