Always keen to break with French presidential tradition, Nicolas Sarkozy has added another first to his cap – taking it upon himself to announce who would be the new boss of a major (supposedly independent) French newspaper, the leading financial daily, Les Echos. Always pass-master at communication, Sarkozy is now getting particularly clever at controlling those who talk about him.

According to Rue 89, which has interviewed the people concerned, the President’s announcement caught everyone off-guard, including the person it concerned most, the new boss. Until two weeks ago Les Echos belonged to the British Pearson Group, which also owns the FT. Much to the horror of those working on the paper, they were sold to the businessman Bernard Arnault, who owns LVMH (think of Louis Vuitton bags’, Veuve Clicquot, Krug, Château d’Yquem - that kind of thing), purveyors of luxury goods and a close friend of M. Sarkozy – he was the best man at the Sarkozy’s wedding. Fearing that the influence of such a powerful business magnate and close friend of the President would hobble their objectivity – much of Les Echos is taken up with articles about the business world – the staff had objected strongly and had gone on strike over the purchase. That much was history, but the scene on Friday evening at the Elysée Palace took everyone by surprise.

The senior editors of Les Echos were invited to a discussion with the President. They assumed it would be an off-the-record briefing to hear the President’s views on the rail strike and his reforms. Who knows, perhaps he was even interested in their views? That at any rate was how the President’s press advisor, herself a journalist on the weekly magazine Le Point, set up the meeting. Indeed, still according to rue 89, at first they did talk about the social climate, the cost of living, the cost of the strikes – nitty-gritty that would interest financial journalists. Then quite unexpectedly, “d’un ton cassant” (brooking no contradiction), the President told them they were fools to fight the purchase of their paper by his friend Bernard Arnault, who “is a good man” and willing to invest in their paper. Finally, at the end of the interview, Sarkozy suddenly said: “And what about Nicolas Beytout?” Dead silence: everyone realised the President was telling them the name of their new boss. “The visitors were estomaqués (speechless).” Beytout, as editor-in-chief of Le Figaro, is much respected, with a reputation for protecting his journalists from forceful and meddling owners (Le Figaro is owned by another close friend of Sarkozy, the aeroplane and arms manufacturer Serge Dassault), but nevertheless Beytout is one of Sarkozy’s close circle, invited to the now infamous dinner at Fouquet’s on election night to celebrate Sarkozy’s victory.

“Breaking the silence,” Rue 89 continues, “Sarkozy repeated: ‘What about Nicolas Beytout?”
“So from now on it’s official: the President of the Republic himself announces the nominations for the media bosses.”

When Rue 89 telephoned Beytout two days later, he was surprised at what the President had said, adding that he hadn’t yet discussed the matter with his boss, Serge Dassault. One can imagine that neither was best pleased at this flagrant breach of internal etiquette – mere journalists discomfiting the mighty owner and his editor.

Beytout in fact is moving job to become the head of Arnault’s as yet unformed media group – the excitingly-named LVMH Medias. As well as owning Les Echos it is known that M. Arnault has his eyes on the FT, which Pearson also wants to sell, and the most popular TV channel, TF1 which Bouygues (owned by yet another close friend of Sarkozy, indeed the man he calls his brother) is no longer interested in.

One aspect of Sarkozy’s 6 months’ presidency that has been criticised by many experts in France and abroad is his lack of knowledge (putting it politely) of economic matters. I imagine nothing would please him more than to have a close friend own the main daily British and French financial newspapers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 9:28 am and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.