Faced with the revolt of the editorial staff of Marianne, opposed to the purchase of the weekly by Pierre-Edouard Stérin after an article on his links with the National Rally (RN), the billionaire and the Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky have 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 decide definitively on the fate of these discussions,” CMI France said on the first day of a 24-hour renewable strike. It was voted on by the editorial staff on Thursday after an unsuccessful meeting with Denis Olivennes, chairman 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 attributing political connections to him with the RN.
In its investigation, the daily newspaper claims that several candidates in the LR legislative elections who are in favor of an alliance with the RN come from the “Stérin galaxy.” They are notably linked to the Fonds du bien commun, the philanthropic enterprise of the 50-year-old billionaire, who heads 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,” said the SRM on Thursday, asking CMI France to “start looking for new buyers capable of ensuring the editorial independence of Marianne and (her) ) economic sustainability”.
The editorial staff thus made an about-face compared to a previous vote. On June 21, it had decided by 60.3% not to oppose the repurchase of the title by Mr. Stérin, 104th French fortune and boss of Smartbox (gift boxes), in exclusive negotiations since mid-May with CMI France.
This first election 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.
His left-wing sovereignist profile seemed to correspond to the editorial line of Marianne, which combines sovereignty, secularism and criticism of elites, and whose editorial director is Natacha Polony.
In parallel with the exclusive negotiations with Mr. Stérin, a challenger has made another takeover offer for Marianne: the entrepreneur Jean-Martial Lefranc, 62, who made a career in video games and took 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), who expressed interest.
His profile is more “reassuring” because “he is a man who knows the press,” Margot Brunet believes. But, “for the moment, (his offer) does not seem financially solid enough to us,” she lamented.
