Paris (AFP)

Seven magazine publishers have teamed up in a new cooperative demanding their departure from Presstalis, the crisis-hit giant of press distribution, they said on Wednesday.

The state, magazines and daily newspapers are negotiating these days for the future of Presstalis, threatened with liquidation following enormous financial difficulties. A hearing is scheduled for May 12 at the Paris Commercial Court to decide on a possible liquidation.

"Independent publishers and entrepreneurs are left out of the discussions," accuse in a statement the seven founding groups of the new Cooperative of Free and Independent Publishers (Celin).

Celin brings together SoPress (SoFoot, Society), Unique Heritage Media (Le Journal de Mickey, Picsou magazine), Point de vue, Hildegarde (Première), Les cahiers du cinema, Panini France and Jibena (game magazines).

The daily newspaper cooperative hopes to eventually see a single cooperative, but without liquidating Presstalis. The magazine cooperative, for its part, is considering an immediate rapprochement of Presstalis with its sole competitor, the MLP, and considers that daily newspapers should bear the cost of their distribution alone.

The seven Celin publishers want to turn the page, even if they remain members of the magazine cooperative for the moment. "We no longer believe in Presstalis' ability to assume and pay our debts," Emmanuel Mounier, president of Unique Heritage Media, told AFP. "It's a matter of trust. The future of Presstalis is no longer our business."

The media distributed by Presstalis were however forced in December 2019 by Arcep, a new regulator of press distribution, to remain email clients for six months, in order to avoid a financial hemorrhage.

On April 16, the conciliator Hélène Bourbouloux also proposed that the State finance half of the losses linked to the bankruptcy, valued around 120 million euros, and lend the other half to the publishers, in exchange for their investment in the future distribution system

"We don't have the cash!" Replied Emmanuel Mounier. "We are strangling ourselves".

Celin's cooperators want to "recover their freedom of distribution as soon as possible" and obtain "fair compensation" for past and announced losses, its founders said in their press release. They would join the MLP.

In the long term, Celin wants to "ensure in the long term a distribution cost adapted to their forms and frequency of publication, as fair and competitive as possible".

© 2020 AFP