Lyon (AFP)
"Les Potins d'Angèle", a satirical weekly as much appreciated as it is feared by the political and economic elites of Lyon, is shutting down after 15 years of existence, its founder announced Thursday to AFP.
"Economically, it was no longer tenable. The situation was complicated and became even more so, between the press crisis and the bankruptcy of newsstand distribution in Lyon", where "Gossip" had not been available since. May, Gérard Angel, an incisive expert in Lyon's high society and the main pen of the “local Canard Enchaîné”, told AFP.
"I will not continue to fight for nothing. I want to do something else," added the former head of the political service of Progress, acknowledging that at 69, he had failed in his quest for a successor to keep afloat this eight-page tabloid-format title which crunched every week Lyon politicians and decision-makers in its vitriolic articles and drawings.
Among the feats of arms of "the weekly behind the scenes of Lyon life", appear in particular the revelations which led to the conviction of Bernard Rivalta, former president of the Mixed Syndicate of Transport for the Rhone and the Lyon conurbation (Sytral) , to reimburse indemnities unduly received between 2002 and 2005.
In the last number published online Thursday, the 669, “Les Potins d'Angèle” announce “bow out”, without depriving themselves of scratching one last time the former mayor Gérard Collomb, this time accused of “resetting his director office at the firefighters ".
His favorite target, the president of Olympique Lyonnais Jean-Michel Aulas, is also entitled to a tender projection: "As the saying goes, the misfortune of some makes the happiness of others. It is not Jean-Michel Aulas who will say the opposite ".
And in a final spade, Gérard Angel explains to AFP that he is thinking of the many Lyonnais caciques defeated by the EELV candidates in the last municipal and metropolitan.
“I didn't want to be as ridiculous as them by doing the extra mandate!” He laughs.
© 2020 AFP