Employees of -

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The newspaper and the magazine

L'Equipe

will not be broadcast on Saturday, their employees being called to strike this Friday against a social plan which provides for the elimination of forty jobs, we learned from the management of the group and the inter-union at the origin of the movement.

The call to strike, 24 hours from Friday 4 pm, was launched by the unions SNJ - SNJ-CGT - UFICT-CGT - SGLCE-CGT, which represent "journalists, executives and employees" of the newspaper and magazine

L'Equipe

, but also from

France Football

,

Vélo Mag

and

Sport & Style

, also published by the group.

This strike "is likely to be renewed every day at 4 pm" if the management "does not agree to start real negotiations", specifies the inter-union in its appeal sent to AFP.

Withdrawal from the social plan

"We want the withdrawal of the social plan or a completely different project, which eliminates much fewer jobs, and much more important starting conditions", explained to AFP Stéphane Antoine, elected SNJ-CGT at the CSE, who predicted "a very large mobilization".

Contacted by AFP, the management did not wish to react, but specified that the daily and the magazine would not be broadcast on Saturday.

Faced with financial difficulties due to the cessation of sports competitions in the spring of 2020 with the coronavirus crisis, the group has been crossed by strong tensions since June.

It has around 700 employees.

The employees were then opposed to the draft collective performance agreement presented by management.

This project provides for a reduction in wages (-10%) and in the number of days of RTT, in exchange for the preservation of jobs over the period 2020/2024.

The management responded at the end of October by announcing a reorganization and a job protection plan (PSE) within the publications.

These are weakened by an uncertain advertising market and the decline in number sales.

But the inter-union deplores the "conditions [of departure] much lower than those which prevailed during the previous PES", while "the financial situation of the group has not yet deteriorated".

A "heavy, sad, gloomy atmosphere"

Before the strike, more than 180 publishers, iconographers, proofreaders and journalists had expressed their dissatisfaction in letters addressed to the management.

As for journalists, 115 reporters from

L'Equipe

,

L'Equipe Magazine

and

France Football are

indignant at the removal of 13% of their workforce, or 17 positions, in a letter consulted by AFP.

They demand the abandonment of the PES, of which they say they do not understand "the timing or the content", and which will lead according to them "to a further deterioration of [their] working conditions".

"How can we believe in a rebound if we neglect, shortly before the Olympic deadlines (2021 and 2024), the regular monitoring of entire disciplines, so-called" small sports "individual or collective, which have nevertheless made the history and the richness of our newspaper ?

They ask themselves.

Part of a "heavy, sad, morose" atmosphere in their writing, after having "taken the blows, the PES, the reorganizations" for years, the journalists express "serious doubts on the chosen course".

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  • Strike

  • Sport

  • Social plans

  • Newspaper

  • Media