Le point final du journaliste

(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?