October 1 will mark the outcome of the sale of the weekly – valued at 120 million euros -, announced to everyone’s surprise at the end of February by the Lagardère group.
It’s “a bit of a heartbreak”, but “it’s an offer that cannot be ignored”, commented in April Arnaud Lagardère, CEO of the group of the same name swallowed by Vincent Bolloré via Vivendi at the end of 2023 .
440,000 weekly copies
At 75 years old, this emblematic title of photojournalism, whose slogan has long been “the weight of words, the shock of photos”, combines major war reports and immersion in the privacy of stars and politicians. It still sells more than 440,000 copies each week.
Its sale contributes to Lagardère’s debt reduction strategy, while sealing the agreement between Vincent Bolloré and Bernard Arnault, who had coveted it for a long time.
Asked, LVMH, already owner of “Parisien” and “Échos”, does not wish to detail its plans for the magazine immediately.
“Paris Match will be managed separately from the Les Échos-Le Parisien group,” the CEO of the latter, Pierre Louette, only indicated in September in Le Figaro.
“The magazine will benefit from a different legal entity and real autonomy, while benefiting from the support of our management and distribution,” he added.
There is a “desire to remake the Paris Match of the great era” and “therefore to rehire” after the numerous departures that have occurred in recent years, reports a journalist from the weekly wishing to remain anonymous. But “we do not yet have a very clearly stated editorial strategy”.
In 2025, the editorial staff of “Paris Match”, currently headed by Jérôme Béglé and located at the headquarters of Lagardère News like that of “Journal du Dimanche” (JDD) or Europe 1 in the 15th arrondissement, will move “to new premises in Paris,” according to an internal message.
Soon over, therefore, the “cantoche with Pascal Praud”, figure of CNews and Europe 1, quips a journalist. He says he is “obviously” satisfied with leaving the Bolloré media sphere, regularly accused by the left of promoting far-right ideas.
“A liberation for the editorial staff”
“It’s more of a liberation for the editorial staff,” argues the journalist, even if “Paris Match has been fairly preserved” compared to the JDD or Europe 1, emptied of their troops following historic strikes in 2021 and 2023 .
And to cite the multiplication these “last three to four months” of headlines devoted to the Catholic religion dear to the billionaire, outside of “the DNA of Paris Match”.
The September 19 edition was dedicated to a community of sisters with Down syndrome, and the August 14 edition to the Virgin Mary.
Paroxysm of the shocks experienced by the magazine, its society of journalists (SDJ), guarantor of respect for ethical rules, was scuttled at the start of the year.
In the summer of 2022, she was outraged by a front page dedicated to the ultra-conservative cardinal Robert Sarah, then by the dismissal of the political and economic editor-in-chief of “Paris Match” Bruno Jeudy, replaced by CNews figure Laurence Ferrari .
The latter now chairs the JDD and JDNews brands, a new weekly news magazine launched in September.
On the front page of its first issue, a bust of Marianne, symbol of the Republic, whose face has been replaced by that of a statue of Saint Clotilde, the result of a photomontage revealed this week by the site “Les Jours”. Contacted, Lagardère did not wish to comment.
Less feared than Vincent Bolloré, Bernard Arnault is also the subject of criticism concerning his relationship to press freedom. According to “La Lettre”, the billionaire notably formulated to LVMH executives an “absolute ban on speaking” to seven media outlets, a blacklist against which around forty editorial staff protested on Monday.
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