Paris (AFP)

The Le Figaro group has signed an agreement with Facebook on the issue of neighboring rights, which should allow press publishers to be paid for the resumptions of certain content by major internet platforms, he said on Tuesday.

This agreement was signed "in view of and in support" of the collective agreement currently being negotiated by the Alliance for the General Information Press (Apig), and "is linked" to this general agreement, he told AFP the general manager of the group Le Figaro, Marc Feuillée, after having briefly mentioned the subject during the conference "Media in Seine".

The agreement also includes "our future participation in Facebook News", the service that the American giant wants to launch in France, added Mr. Feuillée, without giving further details.

Le Monde had already announced the signing of an agreement on neighboring rights with Facebook two weeks ago.

The Apig negotiations are led by the president of the association, Pierre Louette, CEO of the Les Echos - Le Parisien group and president of the Apig.

The Alliance "is almost in the process of signing with Facebook", for its part indicated during the round table of Media in Seine Bérénice Lajouanie, the general manager of Les Echos.

Regarding negotiations with Google, "the two-month deadline" set by the Competition Authority "runs until mid-November, we should get there," she said.

Created in 2019, neighboring rights are similar to copyright associated with press content (extracts from articles, photos, videos, infographics, etc.) shared on a social network or which appear in the results pages of a search engine when requesting an Internet user.

Neighboring rights are contested in principle by the major internet platforms, and negotiations with the press were very laborious.

On July 13, Google was fined 500 million euros by the Competition Authority for not having negotiated "in good faith" with the press on this issue.

The Authority asked the American giant to resume negotiations with publishers, to offer them a new compensation offer.

© 2021 AFP