Marseilles (AFP)

Anger is brewing among the employees of the regional daily La Marseillaise, founded during the Resistance, opposed to the takeover project envisaged by the competitor La Provence associated with the entrepreneur Xavier Niel.

Some 200 people gathered on Thursday in front of the premises of La Marseillaise, in the heart of Marseille, to defend this historic newspaper, marked on the left since its founding by the Communist Party in 1943.

The publisher of the newspaper, Les Fédérés, was placed in compulsory liquidation on July 13 by the Marseille commercial court, which set Friday 6:00 p.m. as the deadline for takeover bids.

"Niel niet" could be read on banners hung from the windows of the newspaper by the employees.

They denounce "the hostile offer", according to them, which would jointly prepare La Provence, of which the businessman Bernard Tapie is the majority shareholder, and the founder of Free, Xavier Niel, via his personal holding company NJJ Presse.

Provence will "certainly" submit an offer tomorrow (Friday) via a takeover structure with a minority stake in NJJ Presse, a source close to NJJ confirmed to AFP.

"We don't want their offer. What interests them is the world La Marseillaise à pétanque (an international pétanque competition, note) which brings in money. The newspaper, the pluralism of information, they 'don't care,' lamented Emilie Parente, CGT delegate.

"This offer provides for the elimination of 80% of the workforce: only 10 to 15 jobs out of the 52 currently would be kept and the daily would be transformed into a weekly. We cannot accept that one title absorbs another in the same territory, even if we are not fighting against our colleagues in Provence, "said Léo Purguette, editor-in-chief of La Marseillaise.

"There will necessarily be job cuts. By force of circumstances, all support functions disappear. We will only focus in the recovery on the editorial resource," admitted a source close to NJJ, specifying that the idea is to make La Marseillaise a weekly "with a digital transition".

According to this source, there is no problem of pluralism because it is not a question of stopping the newspaper, but "just to change the economic model".

Xavier Niel, founder of Iliad (Free), bought the regional daily Nice-Matin and is a co-shareholder of Le Monde and La Provence. He also took over the online betting activity of Paris-Turf and the daily France-Antilles.

In a press release consulted by AFP, the National Union of Journalists (SNJ) of Provence assures us that Jean-Christophe Serfati, CEO of this daily, "confirmed + think + about an offer (...) to buy" the newspaper Communist.

- "Essential diversity" -

Another takeover offer supported by the employees of La Marseillaise must be filed Friday by the media Maritima, confirmed to AFP the latter's lawyer, Me Hugo Gervais de Lafond.

It proposes the creation of a cooperative society of collective interest bringing together employees of La Marseillaise, private investors and local communities.

Created in 2010, Maritima, of which the town of Martigues, run for years by a communist mayor, is the majority shareholder, includes a television channel, a radio station and a website employing around 40 people.

"I believe in this takeover project carried by the maritimamedias group", tweeted LR president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Renaud Muselier. "I do not always share the editorial line of lamarsweb! But freedom of the press and its diversity are essential," he added.

The filmmaker Robert Guédiguian and the resistant Marcel Thomazeau launched at the end of July an appeal to support La Marseillaise which Thursday had collected more than 2,000 signatures.

Circulated in around 15,000 copies, as a daily newspaper in Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and part of Vaucluse, as well as weekly in Gard and Hérault, La Marseillaise has already experienced financial difficulties in the past. From 200 in 2014, its workforce has shrunk to 50 today.

© 2020 AFP