Paris (AFP)
A week after similar turmoil in the Parisian, the editorial staff of Paris Match criticized Wednesday an editorial devoted to the condemnation of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a tone deemed partisan.
"Shocked, the writing of Paris Match dissociates itself from the editorial of its director Hervé Gattegno to be published Thursday, under the title + Sarkozy, a strange affair +, in which he qualifies in particular as + infamous sentence +" the conviction of the former president, announces the Society of Journalists of the magazine, in a press release co-signed by the unions SNJ, SNJ-CGT, CFDT and FO.
"It is one thing to give the floor to a former President of the Republic, who is also a member of the supervisory board of the Lagardère group, owner of Paris Match. It is quite another to comment on a court decision by taking sides, and 'thus engage a whole editorial staff deeply attached to press freedom,' add the signatories.
"Paris Match is not an opinion newspaper, much less a partisan pharmacy" and "such a position undermines our newspaper and its editorial staff", they judge.
The magazine is not the only medium where the sentence pronounced against the former president caused dissent.
Last week, the editorial staff of Le Parisien had also dissociated itself from an editorial written by the director of the newspaper, in which the latter castigated "court decisions" against the policies "of increased severity or relentless intransigence ".
Nicolas Sarkozy became at the beginning of the month the first former president of the Fifth Republic sentenced to prison: one year for corruption and influence peddling in the so-called "eavesdropping" affair.
The former head of state, who has always claimed to have never committed "the slightest act of corruption", will appeal against his three-year prison sentence, two of which are suspended - a flexible sentence.
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