Editorial vote on the Le Monde sale
A preliminary decision has been made in the bidding war for *Le Monde*, the flagship of the French press. On Friday, the *Le Monde* Journalists' Association voted by a margin of more than 90 percent in favor of the bidding consortium led by left-wing cultural patron Pierre Bergé.
This decision means that the group of investors favored by President Nicolas Sarkozy, led by the owner of the news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Claude Perdriel, and the partly state-owned telephone group Orange France Télécom, has lost out. According to SDA, Orange is primarily interested in the internet business Le Monde Interactif.
The capital share of journalists is diluted with the entry of investors and editors lose their independence from publishers. Bergé, who together with the banker Matthieur Pigasse and the
Xavier Niel, founder of the Internet provider Free, wants to guarantee editors their freedom.
The third interested party was the specialist publisher Daniel Monteux. However, his offer was not considered in the end.
www.sda.ch
The capital share of journalists is diluted with the entry of investors and editors lose their independence from publishers. Bergé, who together with the banker Matthieur Pigasse and the
Xavier Niel, founder of the Internet provider Free, wants to guarantee editors their freedom.
The third interested party was the specialist publisher Daniel Monteux. However, his offer was not considered in the end.
www.sda.ch
