A very symbolic return to Release : its co-founder and one of its historical figures, Serge July, 80, is returning to the left-wing daily as a political columnist, seventeen years after leaving it, management announced on Friday 6 January.
“Central figure of French journalism, great observer of the political scene for decades, author of passionate and fascinating biographies, multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker, Serge will write posts in the Editos page from January 23”writes the director of FreedDov Alfon, in an internal message consulted by Agence France-Presse.
Pushed to release in 2006
Big mouth, suburban accent, black lock and glasses, Mr. July co-founded Release with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1973 and embodied it for more than thirty years. Initially a spokesperson for social struggles, the newspaper became, under the influence of its charismatic director, the decipherer of many social phenomena and the benchmark daily for the left. He adopts for this a more informative tone and moves away from the leftism of his beginnings. A figure in the political and media world, Mr. July was even entitled to his puppet at Canal+’s “Guignols” in the 1990s.
After the glory period of the late 1980s, when sales were close to 200,000 copies a day, Serge July was forced to leave Freed in June 2006, pushed out by the reference shareholder at the time, Edouard de Rothschild. He is accused of having delayed relaunching the newspaper. “The conductor that I was says goodbye to you, the journalist too, infinitely sad not to be able to write here anymore”he then declared in front of his editorial staff.
Dov Alfon announces more arrivals at Freedincluding those of the writer and singer Lola Lafon and the geographer Magali Reghezza-Zitt, now columnists in the Ideas department.
From 2014 to 2020, the newspaper lived under the aegis of the Altice group, led by billionaire Patrick Drahi, who then transferred it to a fund intended to guarantee its independence, the Endowment Fund for an Independent Press (FDPI) . In September 2022, the Czech tycoon Daniel Kretinsky (also an indirect shareholder of the Monde) bailed out Release up to 15 million euros to help it regain its balance, expected in 2026. According to the ACPM (Alliance for Press and Media Figures), Freed sold 93,000 copies per day over the 2021-2022 period, an increase of 11.14% compared to 2020-2021.