The newspaper “Le Monde” celebrates its 80th anniversary

The World is today a newspaper consulted mainly digitally and distributed to 500,000 people. But in 1944, it was a double-sided sheet laid out in the premises of the old newspaper Timerue des Italians, in Paris. There are 40 journalists there compared to 540 today.

Its founder, Hubert Beuve-Méry, is a resistance fighter who is also a former director of studies at the Uriage Executive School, under Vichy. It is him that General de Gaulle will choose to create a daily newspaper of reference, telling himself that he will thus have an ally. However, Hubert Beuve-Méry will gain his independence by opposing De Gaulle when he is in power, even if he was able to be more understanding on his foreign policy. And basically, it is a principle that has not changed: more The World found himself close to the powers in place, particularly after the election of Mitterrand, he was less good.

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The Worlda still independent newspaper

The daily almost ceased to be independent in 2011 when it was bought by a trio of businessmenincluding Xavier Niel, who is known to be close to Macron. But The World has always retained the right to block its editors’ company which has allowed it to protect itself from any interventionism. The community of journalists must even give its approval to any change of shareholder and director.

It must also be said that Xavier Niel, who was not mistreated by The Worldgave him the means of his independence. With, since April, something new: it is the Press Independence Fund which controls The World. This fund also provides an envelope of 200,000 euros to support journalism projects.

The World must also defend its editorial choices

Thursday, December 19, an article signed Eugénie Bastié denounced a “ growing unease over newspaper’s treatment of Israel “. At issue: the fact that the deputy head of the international service, Benjamin Barthe, former Albert Londres prize winner, is the husband of a Palestinian woman he met in Ramallah when he was a correspondent for the newspaper. This is enough for Figaro to resume a campaign to which CNews has accustomed us rather with the suspicion of anti-Semitism, even conspiracy, which would be accounted for by a wall on World with a “Stop Genocide” sticker. In reality, The World had a balanced treatment of the conflict, reporting on the horror of October 7 and documenting the ongoing massacre since then in Gaza. Eugénie Bastié, formerly of CNews, herself appeared in an article in World in support of its director Alexis Brézet after a crisis at Figaro linked to his refusal to choose the anti-RN front.

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