Behind “a” Paris Match “on Cardinal Sarah, shadow of Vincent Bolloré

The weekly journalists castigate the coverage devoted on Thursday, July 7, to an ultra -conservative prelate little known to the public, while the Breton billionaire group leads an OPA on that of Arnaud Lagardère.

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The young retiree Vincent Bolloré, supposed to have ceased all activity on February 17, would he take control of Paris Match? The question has tapped the editorial staff since the decision was made to “a” a prelate very little known to the general public, Cardinal Robert Sarah. Thursday, July 7, in kiosks, readers will be able to discover the portrait, signed by Philippe Labro, which the weekly devotes on six pages to this “man of influence and peace”. This choice, made against the advice of the editorial staff, caused an internal sling.

As early as Monday before the looping, the editors in chief wrote their disapproval at Constance Benqué, the director general of the Media Pole, and to Arnaud Lagardère, officially boss of the title. His group is currently under a Vivendi OPA, of which the Bolloré family is the first shareholder. In essence, they explained that if devoting an article to a personality like Cardinal Sarah could be justified, to carry it in “one” constituted an editorial and commercial error, contrary to the DNA of a newspaper supposed ideological. On July 6, the Paris Match journalists (SDJ) (SDJ) in turn moved from “this perilous choice”, likely to “harm the image” of the publication.

“This prelate is known for his positions and defines himself as” radical “, defending very divisive positions”, she wrote in a press release. Opposed to Pope Francis on the opening of the Church to remarried divorced and homosexuals, as he developed in a book published in 2015, God or nothing. Interview on Faith (Fayard), the Guinean is concerned about the progression of “Islamic populations” brought to make a West “decadent, without children, without families” disappear in the daily Le Figaro in 2016.

a regular in the media of Vivendi

Problem, these positions are not included in Philippe Labro’s paper, who is content to evoke “a rigid curator”. The very choice of the octogenarian journalist, notoriously close to Vincent Bolloré, a claimed Catholic, to interview the prelate question: the weekly has long used the great specialist in Catholicism Caroline Pigozzi. “The editorial management offered me to portray this man, I was not associated with the choice of the” one “, specifies in the world Philippe Labro, who prefers to put the controversy into perspective. In whatever newspaper that this Either, the SDJs ask questions about the capitalists who have newspapers. This is a normal life. “

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/Media reports.