Nice (AFP)

Iskandar Safa, candidate for the revival of the regional newspaper Nice-Matin, threw in the towel Monday, legally wedged by the competing offer of Xavier Niel and politically by the hostility of the editorial staff, worried about the political pedigree of the billionaire Franco-Lebanese .

Active in the civil and military shipyards, Mr. Safa is the owner of the weekly Valeurs Actuelles, thriving in a rather depressed press market but ranked very right.

Too much in any case for the editors, gathered behind the hashtag #We didn'tPasThe SameValeurs and who had voted on July 12 to 95% for the offer of resumption of Mr Niel, sensitive to the promises of guarantee on the editorial independence. Safa's resumption project had been negotiated since before Christmas, and LR MP Eric Ciotti, reputed to be close to the billionaire with whom he shares the defense of Christian values, was suspected of playing matchmakers in the run-up to the municipal elections.

The dramatic event occurred at the opening of a works council. The CEO of the Nice-Matin group Jean-Marc Pastorino said "he had received a telephone call from Iskandar Safa announcing that he was withdrawing his offer + An offer he could not maintain + in a divided company + ", according to the National Union of Juniors (SNJ).

"It's a satisfaction after a month and a half of uncertainty," said Denis Carreaux, director of the group's editorial team.

"The editors are reassured and relieved," he added, although everything remains to be rebuilt after the episode Nethys, the name of the Belgian group, shareholder since 2016 but accused of being absent subscribers.

"Now we have to go to work to build the project with Niel and rebuild the cohesion of the company after this duel," added Mr. Carreaux. "We will work with all the components of Nice-Matin to build a project together, it is necessary that the project concerns everyone," he says.

- "Legal stalemate" -

The newspaper was torn between the editorial board and other employees who considered Safa's project "the most viable for the company".

The Nice branch of the Livre CGT has been accused of making a deal with the extreme right, for its support for Mr Safa's plan, and the newspaper, placed under a bailout plan by the Nice Commercial Court, ran the risk of an endless judicial struggle. with incalculable internal consequences.

Mr. Safa was in a "legal deadlock" and it was "impossible for him to advance against the drafting," said Romain Maksymowycz, secretary of the SNJ.

On 12 July, Mr Pastorino had hinted that Mr Safa had committed to the guarantees, the cash and the costs to bring the Nice-Matin pact to justice against Xavier Niel.

The Nice newspaper, which radiates to Toulon with Var-Matin, is 66% controlled by the group's 456 employees, via a cooperative society of collective interest (SCIC).

The remaining 34% belong since July to Xavier Niel, through the controlling stake that his personal holding NJJ took in Avenir Développement, until now controlled by Nethys.

Under a shareholders' agreement linking SCIC to this company, Niel is expected to become the majority shareholder of Nice-Matin by 2020.

The newspaper has a circulation of 120,000 copies per day and 16 million web visits per month.

Already candidate in 2014 for a takeover of Nice-Matin, Iskandar Safa recently acquired 39% of the local television channel Azur TV based in Nice that covers the news of the Mediterranean coast from Marseille to Menton, through three issuers. The law did not forbid that he buys in addition the dominant regional newspaper.

The owner of Free is already co-owner of the daily Le Monde.

© 2019 AFP