The crisis at the JDD begins this Tuesday, August 1, 2023 a new stage with the taking up of the post of director of the newspaper by Geoffroy Lejeune. Imposed by shareholder Arnaud Lagardère, current owner of the group, this appointment is categorically refused by the editorial staff, which has been on strike since June 22.
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“ A raw talent of French journalism. » This is howArnaud Lagarderethe current owner of Sunday newspaper (JDD), qualifies the one he chose to lead the weekly news. Even if the boss of the group denies it, many observers see in this appointment the hand of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, with opinions deemed ultra-conservative. His group, Vivendi, is indeed in the process of absorbing Lagardère.
Accustomed to the sets of CNews, news channel of the Bolloré galaxy, Geoffroy Lejeune, aged 34, distinguished himself above all by his radical conception of opinion journalism when he directed the magazine Current values. This son of a Foreign Legion officer joined the far-right weekly in 2012 before taking over at the age of just 27.
Its editorial line made up of bias is illustrated by controversial front pages, some with conspiratorial overtones targeting the billionaire George Soros. In August 2020, an article caricaturing the deputy LFI of Paris Danièle Obono as a slave had caused an outcry which had earned the weekly a conviction for public insult of a racist nature.
Support for Eric Zemmour
During the 2022 presidential election, Current Values is committed to the far-right candidate Éric Zemmour, whom Geoffroy Lejeune admires and already imagined as president in a novel published in 2015. A choice far from winning: the weekly loses 10% of its subscribers and sees its sales in kiosks move back.
The journalist has been friends since adolescence with another far-right figure: Marion Maréchal. While he was leading Current valueshe assumed a will to conquer ideological in an interview with the Issep site, the school of political science co-founded by Marion Maréchal.
Laid off in June 2023, Geoffroy Lejeune was appointed a few days later to the management of the JDD. “ It is a huge honor in a career as a journalist to be able to work for such a prestigious title as the JDD. I am fully aware of it and wish to put all my energy into the success of this challenge. “, he assured on Twitter [désormais appelé X, NDLR] on June 23, after the announcement of his recruitment by the Lagardère group. It remained his only public comment.
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His taking office on Tuesday August 1 takes place in a very conflictual climate. The editorial staff refuses to be directed by Geoffroy Lejeune, “ whose values are in total contradiction with those of the JDD » and asks the group to « offer journalists guarantees of legal and editorial independence “. Since June 22, the strike has been systematically renewed almost unanimously, preventing the publication of the JDD six Sundays in a row.
(And with AFP)