Faced with the revolt of the editorial staff of Marianne, opposed to the takeover of the weekly by Pierre-Edouard Stérin after an article on its links with the National Rally (RN), the billionaire and Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky suspended their negotiations.
CMI France, Mr. Kretinsky’s group, and Pierre-Edouard Stérin “have decided by mutual agreement to suspend their discussions on the sale of Marianne,” the current owner of the title announced to AFP.
“They will meet on July 21 to definitively rule on the fate of these discussions,” said CMI France on the first day of a renewable 24-hour strike. It was voted on by the editorial staff on Thursday after an unsuccessful meeting with Denis Olivennes, president of the supervisory board of CMI France.
“We are going on strike to demand a total halt to negotiations,” journalist Margot Brunet, a member of the Marianne editors’ society (SRM), told AFP ahead of a probable general meeting.
“But that is not the point of a suspension,” she added, fearing a maneuver intended to postpone the decision “to a time when the political context will be calmer and the sale will make less noise.”
– “Partisan enterprise” –
On Thursday, the editorial team unanimously expressed its rejection of the takeover by Pierre-Edouard Stérin, the day after an article in Le Monde attributed political links to him with the RN.
In its investigation, the daily argues that several candidates in the LR legislative elections favorable to the alliance with the RN come from the “Stérin galaxy”. They are notably linked to the Common Good Fund, the philanthropic enterprise of the 50-year-old billionaire, who is at the head of the Otium Capital investment fund.
Le Monde also cites another article from Challenges magazine, according to which Mr. Stérin and Otium’s number 2, François Durvye, bought the Le Pen family property in Rueil-Malmaison in November for 2.5 million euros, via a real estate company.
“What appeared to be an individual ideological commitment turns out to be a partisan enterprise,” the SRM said on Thursday, asking CMI France to “look for new buyers capable of ensuring the editorial independence of Marianne and its economic sustainability.”
The editorial team thus made an about-face compared to a previous vote. On June 21, it had decided by 60.3% not to oppose the purchase of the title by Mr. Stérin, 104th richest person in France and boss of Smartbox (gift boxes), in exclusive negotiations since mid-May with CMI France.
This first vote was to allow the continuation of negotiations on “the guarantees of independence” proposed by the conservative and liberal Catholic billionaire on the economic level.
But 40% of employees were already opposed “on principle to Pierre-Edouard Stérin”, insists Margot Brunet, according to whom “the article in Le Monde acted as a turning point”.
“All our articles”, such as investigations on the left or social facts, would be “marked by doubt” if Mr. Stérin were to own the weekly, underlines the journalist, also fearing that certain sources “no longer respond”.
– Challenger –
In Mr. Stérin’s project, the former minister and entrepreneur Arnaud Montebourg was expected to chair the future board of directors of the weekly created in 1997 by journalists Jean-François Kahn and Maurice Szafran.
Her sovereignist left profile seemed to correspond to Marianne’s editorial line combining sovereignism, secularism and criticism of elites, and whose editorial director is Natacha Polony.
At the same time as the exclusive negotiations with Mr. Stérin, a challenger made another takeover offer for Marianne: the entrepreneur Jean-Martial Lefranc, 62, who made a career in video games and had taken over the youth press group Fleurus in 2009.
Mr Lefranc made an offer of five million euros, allied with other investors, including Henri de Bodinat, Joan Beaufort and Philippe Corrot (co-founder of the e-commerce company Mirakl).
His profile is more “reassuring” because “he is a man who knows the press”, believes Margot Brunet. But, “for the moment, (its offer) does not seem financially solid enough to us,” she lamented.
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