A “omerta” does she reign within the newspaper The World ? This is what highlights a long investigation carried out by our colleagues from Figaro as for the treatment reserved by the French daily newspaper for the conflict between Israel and Hamas. During the investigation, our colleagues collected numerous testimonies, but all were anonymous, with one even revealing: “People are afraid. » For what ? Because part of the editorial staff has openly taken the side of the Palestinians for a year, in the conflict between them and Israel. So much so that in new offices, organized in open space, a “gaza blackberry” was erected.
Titled “Stop genocide”it highlights photos of children and press clippings, suggesting a clear message: “Don’t let anyone tell you it started on October 7, 2023”. Other drawings, in English this time, are even more vehement: “It has never been a conflict, it has always been a genocide”. A slogan next to a household spray that sprays the Palestinian flag. Another drawing depicting the Statue of Liberty with a blood-stained Israeli flag is topped with a small sentence in red: “Freedom to kill”.
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The case of journalist Benjamin Barthe and his wife
A journalist interviewed by Le Figaro said to himself “troubled every time she passes this wall”. She also denounces the fact that an opinion “so decided on a conflict of such complexity” be displayed in such an editorial. During a meeting of newspaper executives, it was also said: “We have a problem with the Jewish community, they are hostile. » But beyond the deleterious atmosphere which seems to reign within the editorial staff, it is the entire editorial line which has provoked reactions internally, as well as among readers.
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As evidenced by the front pages of Monde on October 7 and 8, a year after the start of the conflict, which were, according to Le Figaroa wave of reader unsubscriptions. Repeatedly, The World also had to publish corrections such as when the figure of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was described as « martyr ». But above all, journalists point the finger at the line followed by the international service, whose deputy editor-in-chief is none other than Benjamin Barthe. A former Middle East correspondent for the newspaper, he is married to Muzna Shihabi-Barthe, a pro-Palestinian activist.
An internal investigation dismissed
On many occasions, the latter has been attributed with anti-Semitic or conspiratorial positions, notably when she criticized Emmanuel Macron on X for being under the yoke of the CRIF or when she mourned the « martyr » following the death of the Hamas leader. For his part, Benjamin Barthe republished a column on his account entitled “The law on the apology of terrorism of 2014 deserves to be reformed”. A proposal from the rebellious Ugo Bernalicis. In the viewfinder of his colleagues, the deputy editor-in-chief was questioned as part of a referral to the Society of Editors of Le Monde (SRM). Additionally, her portrait of Rima Hassan was judged “humiliating for the editorial staff”.
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Today, there would indeed be a “discomfort” within the editorial staff of the Mondeespecially since the “ethics and professional conduct committee of the Le Monde group” described as “campaign of intimidation” the denunciations made against Benjamin Barthe and his wife. In the meantime, on social networks, this investigation is causing a stir. The former editor-in-chief of i24News, Noémie Halioua, criticizes “wall where anti-Israeli hatred, anti-Semitism, conspiratorial delirium coexist”. The jurist Étienne Dujardin believes that this wall “recalls that of the ‘wall of idiots’ within the judiciary” and that the “Le Monde newspaper is in total perdition”. Questioned on the subject, the management of the newspaper assures Figaro that “in no case is this individual commitment that of the Society department or the editorial staff as a whole”.
