FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy summoned a senior executive from Le Mondeto the Elysée Palace to raise concerns about the bidding contest for control of the country's most venerable paper.
Reflecting the elevated perch the struggling daily occupies in French public life, its publisher Éric Fottorino has confirmed he met Mr Sarkozy at the president's request this week to discuss the impending sale of a majority stake in Le Monde. The paper's journalists have had a controlling interest since the 1950s, but it was announced last week that the company was seeking urgent investment to meet huge debt repayments.
It is widely believed that Mr Sarkozy is uneasy about the prospect of one of the bidders – a team led by Matthieu Pigasse, a banker who heads Lazard France – taking control of the house journal of France’s elite. Mr Pigasse and a second signatory to the bid – Pierre Bergé, co-founder of the Yves Saint Laurent fashion house – are seen as close to the opposition Socialist Party, whose candidate will present Mr Sarkozy with his greatest obstacle to re-election in 2012.
Mr Pigasse once worked in the cabinets of the Socialist former government ministers Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Laurent Fabius, while Mr Bergé is also believed to be sympathetic to the party. The third member of the bid team is Xavier Niel, a telecoms tycoon.
Other potential investors include Claude Perdriel, owner of the centre-left news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, and the Spanish media group Prisa, which owns Spain's El Paisand already has a 15 per cent stake in the French company. Two more foreign companies – Ringer of Switzerland and the Espresso Group of Italy – have pulled out of the race.
Asked about his meeting with Mr Sarkozy, Mr Fottorino said there had been political interest in Le Mondesince its creation in 1944 "and that's not going to change".
Founded at a time when many French papers were deemed to be discredited by their reporting under the German occupation, the left-leaning and highly influential Le Mondetakes pride in its rigour, seriousness and independence.
Its circulation, at 320,000, has fallen by about 25 per cent in a decade. Without new funds, it might not be able to keep printing and pay wages through the summer.
Under the initial timetable, final bids were to be lodged by last night and considered by the board on Monday, but the deadline was expected to be extended following requests from a number of bidders.