Continuation of press concentration in France
The purchase of five regional newspapers in eastern France creates Est Républicain, France's largest regional newspaper group with eleven titles and a total circulation of 1.1 million copies.
With the purchase of five regional newspapers in eastern France, Est Républicain has become France's largest regional newspaper group with eleven titles and a total circulation of 1.1 million copies. Trade union representatives are now warning of a quasi-monopoly and a threat to pluralism in eastern France. In the west of France, the Ouest-France group already dominates the newspaper market. And mergers are also on the horizon in the south, where the Paris-based Le Monde group and industrialist Arnaud Lagardère want to group their regional titles from Montpellier, Perpignan, Marseille and Nice into a joint company.
