Journalists at France's paper of record are outraged that its ethics and probity have been called into question, writes Lara Marlowe
France's newspaper of record published a unique cry of outrage and pain in its February 28th edition.
"Attacked, defamed, insulted, the staff of Le Monde are wounded," says the statement drawn up during a five-hour meeting of 200 of the paper's 300 journalists. "Our work, ethics, probity and values have been called into question and we intend to defend our professional honour and the title that we are proud to serve."
The biggest scandal in French journalism in decades broke a week earlier, when L'Express magazine published a cover story on The Hidden Face of 'Le Monde', a 634-page book indicting the world's best-selling French-language newspaper.
Its authors, the investigative reporters Pierre Péan and Philippe Cohen, admitted Le Monde was an important part of their own "civic and political education". It is a measure of Le Monde's prestige that both once dreamed of working for the newspaper founded by Hubert Beuve-Méry in 1944.
But over the past decade, Péan and Cohen write, "we have the impression that our newspaper has been stolen from us".
They claim three men, Le Monde's director Jean-Marie Colombani, the editor-in-chief, Edwy Plenel, and the head of its supervisory council, the economist Alain Minc, staged a coup and transformed the respected daily into a cynical, biased organ run by immoral tyrants.
"The newspaper plays a decisive role in the life of the republic," Péan and Cohen note, "for it terrorises politicians, frightens economic players, intimidates publishers, intellectuals and trade unionists."
On their own, these allegations would not have made The Hidden Face of 'Le Monde' an instant best-seller when it was published on February 26th. To some extent, the resentment Le Monde inspires is proportionate to its power and influence. I've often heard it accused of moralising and arrogance.
A friend, a successful novelist,claims its book pages are concocted by a tightly knit coterie of mutual backscratchers. Others find it serious to the point of being soporific.
Le Figaro's literary section is more readable; Libération's political coverage more fresh and irreverent. But Le Monde remains the newspaper I rush downstairs to buy when it arrives on the newsstand at lunch-time. It's good to know that any story of importance will be covered.
There are now serious questions about the management's ethics, but Le Monde continues to publish accurate and well-written articles. It is the only newspaper I store for months after publication for fact checking. Which is why, like the Le Monde journalist who attended that marathon meeting on Wednesday night, my reaction on reading Péan and Cohen was "say it ain't so!"
It was Pierre Péan who revealed the late Francois Mitterrand's Vichy past in an earlier book, Une Jeunesse Française.
Philippe Cohen, who teamed up with Péan at their publisher's suggestion, is a reporter for Marianne weekly. He campaigned for the left-wing sovereigntist candidate Jean-Pierre Chevènement in last year's presidential election.
Some of Péan's and Cohen's grievances may be chalked up to the often vicious polarisation of French politics.
They saw Le Monde's support for the presidential candidacy of Edouard Balladur against Jacques Chirac in 1995 as a betrayal of the paper's ideals. Alain Minc, one of the triumvirate whom they denounce, was an adviser to Balladur. And Colombani has nurtured contempt and distrust of Chirac since he wrote about the future president as mayor of Paris.
At a time when print media are struggling everywhere, the book's criticism of Colombani's financial stewardship is also open to discussion. However, the 85 per cent salary increase he awarded himself and a request to the Budget Minister to clear up a tax problem which might have prevented him from becoming the director of Le Monde, smack of the abuse of power.
Colombani may have had Le Monde's financial interest at heart when he negotiated a 10 per cent share in the Norwegian-owned free daily 20 Minutes in exchange for Le Monde's securing the blessing of French politicians.
According to Péan and Cohen, the deal fell through twice when the Norwegians approached other newspapers. Colombani published an editorial excoriating unfair competition and calling on the government to stop give-away papers. Yet, after the Norwegians contracted to print half their copies on Le Monde's rotary presses, Colombani's moral outrage evaporated.
Even more damaging is the account of Colombani's lobbying the office of the former prime minister, Lionel Jospin, to obtain a €80 million subsidy for the newspaper distributor NMPP.
Le Monde accounted for a quarter of NMPP's €30.5 million losses. Not only did the paper benefit directly from the subsidy, it billed the NMPP 1 million francs for seeking the prime minister's good graces! And Le Monde supported Jospin's presidential campaign . . .
At the newspaper "group therapy" session this week, Edwy Plenel denied that he was a "freelance agent" for the CIA. Plenel, a former Trotskyist, fell foul of the Mitterrand presidency and the allegation was made on the record by Mitterrand's sons and former foreign minister, Roland Dumas.Plenel admitted he became friends with Bernard Deleplace, then the highest-ranking policeman in France, while covering the police beat in the 1980s.
The Hidden Face of 'Le Monde' claims that Plenel became Deleplace's de facto media adviser, designing a police union magazine and writing the official communiqué when a North African demonstrator died after a police beating.
The book also reports that off-duty detectives were paid cash to carry out investigations for Le Monde. Plenel helped Deleplace to publish a book entitled A Cop's Life which was lavishly praised by Le Monde's literary critic.
Le Monde has announced that it will sue Péan and Cohen, their publisher and L'Express magazine for defamation. A voluminous press coverage of the scandal has been balanced, apart from mud-slinging, between two columnists at Le Monde and Libération.
Le Monde devoted several pages to the scandal this week, in which it ridiculed the authors' investigation into the political leanings of Colombani's and Plenel's parents and their denunciation of Le Monde's alleged "francophobia". Le Monde catalogued a series of smear campaigns since its revered founder was accused of being a Soviet agent in the 1950s.
Plenel denounced the "errors, lies, defamation and calumny" in The Hidden Face of 'Le Monde'. Unfortunately, the newspaper's editors have not yet addressed the detailed, specific accusations of unethical dealings with businessmen and politicians.
For its own sake, and for the sake of its readers, they owe us an explanation.