World direction: No. 2 Jerome Fenoglio, preferred candidates … – The Obs

Paris (AFP) – World Shareholders have made a surprise offer to employees Friday to entrust the management of the newspaper to Jerome Fenoglio, current No. 2, the preferring the three declared candidates

In an email sent to the editor, the trio of owners (Pierre Bergé, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse) said it had asked the current managing editor, Jerome Fenoglio, 48, who was not a candidate. Their choice has yet to be ratified by the employees.

The shareholders rejected the candidacy of the current interim director of the newspaper, Gilles Van Kote, as well as Christophe Ayad, head of the international service, Jean Birnbaum, head of the “World of Books”.

“At the end of the hearings and after consultation, and despite the great qualities of each candidate and the very positive assessment of the interim provided by Gilles van Kote, the three shareholders asked Jerome Fenoglio to be a candidate, “they detail.

Some, in writing, the new director wanted” no more breath, more dimension ” Gilles Van Kote, a journalist confided early April.

The choice of shareholders must be submitted to the vote of the World Editors Society (MRS), to be held by mid-May.

Jerome Fenoglio will have to collect 60% of favorable votes to be officially appointed by the Supervisory Board.

He holds a Master of Arts degree from the Lille Graduate School of Journalism (ESJ), Jerome Fenoglio joined the World in 1991 as a reporter in the sports department. He has held several line functions. Head of Society (2004) and editor of Monde.fr, between 2011 and 2013

In May 2014, he was appointed head of the editorial World, led by Gilles Van Kote, became acting director after the departure of Natalie Nougayrède, after a several-month crisis.

Contested, the first woman to head the newspaper had resigned after only 15 months in office. Journalists and department heads reproached him a “self-sufficient” management and “rigid” and reforms carried out without consultation

-. ‘Instability’ –

In a message to employees Friday Gilles Van Kote welcomed a “choice that safeguards the interests of the newspaper” and “remarkable” work his deputy, while making a “regret”: “Jerome will be our sixth Director of the World since the acquisition of the group in late 2010. This instability that hinders the necessary transformation of the newspaper instead shareholders of their responsibilities, “he laments.

If it is dubbed by the editor, Jerome Fenoglio take the controls of a newspaper, if he has suffered like others from the press crisis, rather well last year with almost stable distribution (-0.8%) to 273,000 copies on average each day.

It will also carry out several projects in the months and years to come.

The world must start May 11 in the morning a digital edition, intended for tablets and mobile. To a young audience and present on smartphones, this freemium size (combining free and pay-party options) will be a point early in the morning on the news.

In completing its editorial offering, the daily wants including loyalty of some 150,000 digital subscribers.

The year 2015 should also see the world out of the printer’s trade with the closing of the printing plant in Ivry, near Paris.

In 2017, the future headquarters of Le Monde, in the south of Paris, should help bring together the 1,400 employees of the various publications: Le Monde, the cultural weekly Télérama, the magazine L’Observateur, the Rue89 news sites and Huffington Post, Courrier International and La Vie.