What's happening at le Monde? For many observers, there is only one answer: its a mess. The 3 new shareholders are hard to talk to and rarely meet so that nobody knows what is on their mind. Xavier Niel made a disastrous attempt to overlook the working of the daily through an old mate of him; Mr Boukobza. This fellow arrived directly from Israel to check on an activity he knows nothing about and understands little. His statements were reproduced on the website of http://le point.fr . They were so outrageous that the newsroom of le Monde had a big laugh. And yet, the big dossiers: printing, home delivery, advertising are waiting.
The biggest challenge is presently the choice of a new publisher to replace the departing Fottorino. No doubt there are many candidates but the choice should result from an agreement between the owners and the SRM. For the moment, no name has been forwarded. It seems that the best solution would be a team between Sylvie Kaufmann, the editor in chief and an expert on Internet coming from the outside. But plain common sense is not so widespread in this strange world of le Monde.
