Reduced from 185 to 155 journalists, the editorial staff of Provence will lose thirty positions, the group’s general director announced Wednesday morning to the unions, who denounced “an unprecedented bloodletting” and “a disguised social plan”.
At the end of the day on Wednesday, the inter-union of journalists from the regional daily based in Marseille announced the convening of the entire editorial staff for a general meeting on Thursday at noon, with a vote on a strike action on the agenda.
34 of the 60 journalists on fixed-term contracts renewed
Recalling the operating loss of 12.5 million euros recorded by the daily in 2022, for 50 million euros in turnover, a loss which should only be reduced to 9 million euros in 2023, the director general of ProvenceGabriel d’Harcourt, explained to AFP the need for the company both “to activate new revenues and to work on costs, and in particular costs linked to payroll”.
Thus, only 34 of the 60 journalists on fixed-term contracts hired to replace the incumbents having used the transfer clause, after the resumption of Provence by CMA CGM, the shipping giant, will be retained, said Gabriel d’Harcourt, emphasizing that the editorial staff had not changed since 2018, while at the same time the newspaper lost more than 25,000 copies sold on average per day (from 92,000 to 65,000).
“An unprecedented bloodletting”
In total, 64 journalists from Provence have requested to benefit from this clause – – a system allowing them to leave a media outlet with compensation during a change of ownership after the official takeover at the end of September 2022 of the newspaper, until then held by the Bernard Tapie group (in liquidation) , by the world number three in maritime transport, based in Marseille.
“30 positions eliminated from the editorial staff, that’s a no,” the SNJ (National Union of Journalists) section of the regional daily reacted in the afternoon via a press release: “It’s an unprecedented bloodletting in history of Provence », Estimated the union, according to which “the editorial staff is paying the high price for a social plan which does not speak its name”.
A broken promise
These 30 job cuts within the editorial staff will in fact represent half of the workforce reductions requested by the new shareholder, i.e. 61 jobs in total out of the 610 in the newspaper, all professions combined.
“Consequently, the editorial director’s plan (Editor’s note: Aurélien Viers, former editor-in-chief of the newspaper’s video department The Parisian) for which the editorial staff had massively spoken out and mobilized in May is obsolete”, warned the SNJ, comparing the shareholder’s breach of its “promise to replace all departures in clause”.
“A dark picture”
Likewise, the union denounced in its press release the management’s proposal to move to a single edition on Sunday, compared to nine local editions during the week, as well as the announced closure of the Orange and Carpentras agencies in Vaucluse. “A dark picture,” summed up the SNJ.
Speaking to AFP, Gabriel d’Harcourt defended a necessary evolution of the newspaper, “to meet market expectations, faced with a print model, the paper newspaper, down 8 to 10% in terms of circulation.”