(Thierry Fischer) 23 journalists, 5 graphic designers, 2 picture editors, 1 proofreader
1 accountant, 1 secretary, 3 marketing professionals.
Last Thursday the society of editors and staff of Ringier / Axel Springer
released a statement,
information that specifies the number of employees dismissed
after the decision of the German-Swiss publisher to cease publication
of the French magazine L'Hebdo.
Michel Danthe, good morning.
(Michel Danthe) Hello, Thierry Fischer.
(TF) Thank you very much for being live on Médialogues this morning,
(MD) Yes, there's this - we're coming out of three long weeks.
If you ask me how I'm doing, I'll tell you that I slept badly
lately.
We will reassure our audience: when the same question was put
to Ralph Büchi who is our CEO, who returned
from his sunny holidays in Verbier on Wednesday to tell us
The sad news shortly before everyone else,
he told us that he slept very well,
he apologized a little for being so tanned, but here it is:
He announced this news and since I think it's not only
The negotiating team and the team -
the editors who are sleeping very badly, but also
all those who have witnessed a brutal end
to their professional career in the newspapers they loved,
in the newspapers they defended,
in the newspapers that they really inhabited with their presence, their pen,
with their intelligence.
Anyway, that makes 36 people,
36 people whose professional fortunes are affected.
So here it is, it's actually a - some rather sad weeks.
It comes after long preparation; we'd say that we have a publisher
who's a specialist in slow cooking
and who had already implied to us in September of last year
That there would be things.
These things, they have obviously added to the anxiety of the staff,
the anxiety of all those who were fighting for L'Hebdo to survive,
so that Le Temps, also, can defend its position
in this French-Swiss media landscape.
So long months of waiting, long months of anguish.
And then, well, this anguish and this waiting culminated,
so to speak, for the first time on 23 January,
when they came to tell us
that it was necessary to cut 37 posts.
After that our editor launched into a Blitzkrieg, a little.
It's a bit like the Guderian divisions invading Poland,
if I may say so.
They left us 10 days to react to this situation:
37 posts to cut, to eliminate, 10 days to think,
10 days to establish a negotiating team.
10 days to consult, give our opinion and our alternative economy measures.
That is what we did last week.
In 5 days the management pronounced on these alternative measures,
they have refused and declined all of them.
They consisted, for the record, if people do not know,
of sending to early retirement the executives who had led to such a disaster,
The director of Ringier Romandie and one of the editors in chief of this newsroom,
of this ill-disciplined group which has -
(TF) Daniel Pillard and Alain Jeannet, respectively.
(MD) That's right, yes.
Also save on premises,
Because we have extremely bling-bling premises,
premises which are there to look impressive,
to be able to exhibit works of art from Michael Ringier's collection.
And so it was proposed to tighten up a little more to save money,
to tighten up a little more to save jobs.
All this has been refused and today we are facing this disaster.
(TF) How are you -
that's precisely the question that I was going to ask you, you have anticipated me,
Michel Danthe, one senses in your testimony,
and thank you for coming to our studio this morning,
one obviously senses in your testimony that it is charged.
We will go into the details of what happened
during the previous 3 weeks, just before that.
Of course, the French-speaking public, French-speaking readers
have come across your byline, inevitably,
because you have long experience,
you are one of the journalists who count in French-speaking Switzerland,
you've been a journalist for nearly 40 years
in numerous French-speaking newsrooms.
Trained at the Journal de Genève,
now dismissed from editorial staff at Le Temps,
between the two, Le Courrier, Le Nouveau Quotidien,
you were editor in chief at Matin Dimanche -
(MD) So, Le Courrier, I have never worked at Le Courrier,
but instead at La Suisse, yes.
(TF) Here, I read one of your articles published today on Le Courrier's website.
(MD) Yes, that's when I was unemployed, I -
because I was unemployed and so once, indeed,
I wrote a freelance article
that, among others, Le Courrier, by syndication, picked up.
And also La Liberté, I think.
(TF) This is what -
(MD) This doesn't lack piquancy
because I am not seen as a left-wing journalist,
I am rather of, let us say, the opposite camp.
(TF) You participated in the launch of Matin Bleu,
and also jumped on the bandwagon of new technologies, since
you embarked on a training course,
You have been head of the Opinions and debates section at Le Temps:
responsibilities so diverse, we see, editorial responsibilities,
management responsibilities, still today,
President of the Society of Editors and Ringier / Axel Springer staff.
In your statement, you don't pull any punches,
you talk about carnage.
(MD) Yes, it's carnage,
because people need to know about the carnage at Le Temps.
First, there's the final nail in the coffin of L'Hebdo,
whose editorial team was, I was going to say, virtually eradicated
with the exception of its editor in chief and some others
who were already working as part of the editorial pool at Le Temps.
But what was very well communicated from his point of view, of course,
the editor on January 23, is that 37 posts disappeared,
due to L'Hebdo's ceasing publication.
This is pure nonsense, of course.
37 posts are disappearing, but we did not produce L'Hebdo with 37 people.
We produced L'Hebdo with far fewer people.
Where are the others?
Well the others, they are editorial staff at Le Temps,
an editorial staff that's now slashed by a quarter.
You should know that this is the sixth restructuring since Le Temps was founded,
that the previous round took place in 2015 and affected 15 people,
that the round before that took place in 2012
and affected around ten people.
So you can imagine today, if you will, what is the state
of the writing at this quality paper that the editor used to like to describe
as a newspaper of record - he no longer makes this claim today.
We are clearly (as the journalistic cliché says
that I tell all young journalists to avoid
when they write headlines, but we will make use of it today;
when one is very moved, it is cliches that spring to one's lips)
We are clearly in shock, overwhelmed and very angry.
25% of the staff of Le Temps today,
in addition to the closing down of L'Hebdo, are disappearing.
That is to say from Monday, over the coming months,
it's a different Le Temps that we should talk about.
(TF) What makes you most angry?
(MD) What makes me most angry is that
we were led, if you will, in this, in this disaster
by people who today no longer have the energy to fight -
(TF) But the titles, we must make them profitable, Michel Danthe!
(MD) Of course, you need to make the titles profitable.
But to make the titles profitable, we should not put
people in charge who are waiting for their retirement ...
who are waiting for their retirement and covering their own asses,
and who have no energy or get-up-and-go
to try to pursue this matter!
(TF) Have you been betrayed?