Turbulence coming to the Sunday Journal? Three months after a previous reshuffle and a few months before the presidential election, Jérôme Béglé took over the general management of the editorial staff of the JDD, very influential in the political world.
The current deputy director of the weekly Le Point will replace Jérôme Bellay from January 24, although he recently took office. At the end of October, Mr. Bellay, 79, succeeded Hervé Gattegno, ousted after more than 5 years at the head of the newspaper.
Lagardère, owner of the publication whose main shareholder is media giant Vivendi, was silent on the reasons for this eviction.
On Wednesday, the group did not give a reason for this new change either.
Former co-founder and boss of France Info, Jérôme Bellay has, to his credit, the creation in 1994 of the continuous news channel LCI, then in 2000 of the company Maximal Productions, producer of the program “C dans l ‘air “, designed with Yves Calvi.
“We would like to warmly thank Jérôme Bellay who perfectly supported the Journal du dimanche and its teams during this transition period”, only commented on the management of the Lagardère group in a press release.
– Regular speaker for CNews –
On the other hand, Cyril Petit, editorial director, retains his functions and will support Jérôme Béglé to “continue the transformation projects initiated on JDD, in particular on digital”, specifies this text.
This appointment is a surprise for the editorial staff, to which we have been assured that there will be no change of editorial line, a source familiar with the matter told AFP.
Jérôme Béglé, who worked for Paris-Match and Figaro Magazine, is also collection director at Grasset, an editor also belonging to the Lagardère group, with around twenty published novels.
For the past year and a half, he has been appearing regularly on the CNews channel, owned by Vivendi, the group led by billionaire conservative Vincent Bolloré.
Under the leadership of the latter, the radio Europe 1, also owned by Lagardère, this season made a merger with CNews by having in common speakers, journalists and a program.
These upheavals have caused a hemorrhage of staff within the station, between layoffs and voluntary departures, for many motivated by the fear of an overly right-wing editorial line.
The dismissal of Hervé Gattegno had given rise to similar apprehensions within the editorial staff of the JDD.
The departure of the journalist, who also headed the editorial staff of Paris-Match, had come a month after the publication in Paris-Match of a photo of essayist Eric Zemmour hugging his collaborator Sarah Knafo.
Some had seen in this ousting the influence behind the scenes of Vincent Bolloré and a dissatisfaction related to the coverage of the news concerning Eric Zemmour, former polemicist star of CNews.
The now far-right presidential candidate was also pinned down in an editorial by Hervé Gattegno published in the JDD (“Eric Zemmour poses more of a prophet of misfortune than a knight of renewal”).
Since then, the Vivendi group has announced in early December that it wants to accelerate its full takeover of the Lagardère group without waiting for the green light from the competition authorities, further strengthening its media influence a few months before the presidential election.
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