Paris (AFP)
The New Literary Magazine has been sold to the owners of its rival Lire, its former owner, the press group of Claude Perdriel, confirmed on Tuesday.
Despite the opposition of its journalists and supporters of the monthly, it was sold to the EMC2 group to Jean-Jacques Augier and Stéphane Chabenat, the owners of Lire.
The next edition of the magazine, which is scheduled for completion in mid-June, should already be called Lire-Le magazine littéraire, it says from an internal source.
A legal appeal launched by the CSE of the New Literary Magazine is still in progress. The elected staff ask for a suspension of the transfer, accusing the Perdriel press group of "going through in force", and demanding in particular guarantees, particularly in terms of jobs.
"On the one hand, the editorial line of the two journals whose merger is planned, are radically different and hardly compatible, on the other hand, the economic ins and outs of the project, in particular for employees and freelancers in full-time equivalent, are absolutely not exposed in a transparent manner to employee representative institutions, "underlines the employees' lawyer in his conclusions consulted by AFP.
The Literary Magazine, monthly founded in 1966, was renamed the New Literary Magazine in 2017. Owned by Claude Perdriel for several years, it sold on average for nearly 21,000 copies in France last year, according to the Alliance for press and media figures (CMPA).
Lire, a monthly founded in 1975 by Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber and Bernard Pivot, whose editorial line is more geared towards the general public, sold around 46,000 copies on average last year.
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