Earthquake in the opinion press. The very media and controversial editor of Current Values Geoffroy Lejeune was laid off by his management. According the world, he left the newspaper “with a ban on entering the premises again” of the far-right newspaper in the 16th arrondist of Paris this Friday. He is summoned for an “interview prior to sanction which may go as far as dismissal”.
The man had been in the hot seat for a few months. Last fall, the specialized press suggested that the 30-year-old was about to be fired by the magazine’s owner, the Franco-Lebanese billionaire shipowner Iskandar Safa, who wanted to replace him. But the troublemaker of TV shows had saved his head thanks to the mobilization of his editorial staff and an unprecedented communication operation “I’m here for VA”.
It is therefore in a climate tense by the showdown between Geoffroy Lejeune and the owner of Current Values that a clash took place on Wednesday, in the middle of an editorial conference, according to the story of Le Monde.
“It’s my writing, you have nothing to do there. You leave ! “, Would have swung Geoffroy Lejeune, at the place of the new president and director of the publication Jean-Louis Valentin, arrived two days earlier, always according to the story of an internal source in World. “You are not on a CNews set”, would have retorted the new strong man of the “right-handed” newspaper. The output of too much for the main shareholder, who has been trying for months to influence the excessive right-wing policy operated by the editorial director, already ousted from LCI several months ago.
The sulphurous billionaire, who made his fortune in the arms industry, although not particularly moderate, would not have appreciated the Zemmourian radicalization of the newspaper under the direction of the young boss, according to Liberation. “It was too extreme for him,” a source close to Safa told the daily in October. “Safa wants the paper to support right-wingers without getting behind anyone. He wants to defend ideas rather than people, ”added yet another fine connoisseur of the situation of the weekly.