The Paris daily reprieve in Normandy

 

The new, bad, is not yet official but could be announced to employees on a works council to be held Monday, February 27: Paris Normandy could file for bankruptcy. According to the union SNJ, the regional newspaper, owned by Hersant Media (GHM), after considering a social "scale" would be forced into this solution and, more broadly, the entire division titles Norman Group Hersant Media, which includes, besides Paris-Normandie, Havre Free daily newspapers, Le Havre-Presse and The Progress of Fecamp, and their weekly supplements.

The direction of DRG does not comment. But the situation of his pole Norman is actually very difficult. The paid circulation daily Paris-Normandie has dropped 23% since 2006 to just 52,606 copies at last count of OJD. That of other securities decreased by 26% in five years.

"We fear to a social minimum, at worst a bankruptcy filing," said the AFP-Benoît Marin Curtoud, delegate from Paris to Normandy SNJ.

Discussions with the Belgian Rossel

While DRG is continuing discussions with the Belgian group Rossel to create a joint venture of leading regional dailies in France, the pole Norman seems to be a final hurdle before the conclusion of an agreement. According to the SNJ, the Company Norman publishing and printing (SNPEI), which publishes such titles and employs 365 employees including 114 journalists have registered last year a deficit of EUR 2 million and annual sales of around 40 million.

For the Hersant Media Group, which has already had to close last November Comareg (Released Sold) resulting in the heaviest social of 2011 in France (1650 employees), the liquidation of Paris Normandy would be a second crushing defeat.