France: Altice Média sells Liberation newspaper to an endowment fund

Detail from the front page of the newspaper Liberation, of May 14, 2020, the day the Altice Media group announced to sell the title to an endowment fund. © Release

Text by: Sébastien Jédor Follow

In France, this is an unprecedented development in the history of the press: the newspaper Liberation, classified on the left, will become the property of a non-profit structure. Altice Média legally separates itself from the daily newspaper which will be transferred to an endowment fund supposed to guarantee its independence.

Publicity

Read more

The model has already been adopted by the French information site Médiapart. And, since the 1930s, by the British daily newspaper The Guardian. But for the written press, the paper press in France is a first.

Altice Média, among other owners of BFM TV, RMC radio and the telephone operator SFR, will place Liberation in an entity called "Endowment Fund for an independent press". According to Altice Media, it is a "  non-transferable and non-capitalist non-profit structure  ".

Why ?

Patrick Drahi's group would undertake - without consideration - to pay off Liberation's debts and allow it to develop in the future. Other patrons could contribute to the endowment fund, without benefiting from it. Because the profits, if there were any, would be donated to charities.

Seemingly disinterested, this operation allows Patrick Drahi to put order in Altice Média, which would no longer directly own unprofitable paper newspapers. Last year, Altice had already separated from the weekly L'Express.

The idea of ​​an endowment fund

Be that as it may, the idea of ​​an endowment fund might not have displeased the founders of Liberation, two men on the left, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July. In addition, this idea could be emulated. In any case, she returns regularly to confirm the independence of another major French newspaper, Le Monde.

► Also listen: The media and the "next world", with economist Julia Cagé

Newsletter Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • Media
  • France
  • Culture

On the same subject

Aldebert, the "Corona Minus" of the star singer in children

The new digital frontiers of the Cannes Festival 2020