“Le Figaro”, “Le Monde” and other newspapers sue X

Several newspapers, including “Le Figaro”, “Le Monde”, “Le Parisien” and “Les Échos”, are suing the social network principle of “neighboring rights”, they announced Tuesday in a press release.

This joint action against the social network owned by American billionaire Elon Musk is being carried out before the Paris judicial court by “the press publishers “Le Figaro”, “Les Échos”, “Le Parisien”, “Le Monde”, “Télérama” , “Courrier International”, “Le Huffington Post”, “Malesherbes Publications” and “Le Nouvel Obs””.

Before this action on the merits, these newspapers, as well as the AFP, had summoned X and its French subsidiary for emergency proceedings, accusing it of not wanting to negotiate.

On May 24, the summary judge of the Paris judicial court ruled in their favor. He ordered the social network to provide them, within two months, with a series of commercial data allowing them to assess the income it earns from their content.

X “has not (…) have not complied” to this decision so far, “thus demonstrating its invariable will to escape its legal obligations”, denounced the newspapers to justify their new legal action.

Rights related to copyright were established for digital platforms in 2019 by a European directive. They allow newspapers, magazines or press agencies to be paid when their content is reused by digital giants.