Departure of the editorial director of “La Provence” in “good agreement with the management”

Aurélien Viers leaves the editorship of Provence “in good agreement with management”announced on Thursday to Agence France-Presse (AFP), in agreement with the newspaper’s general director, confirming information from The letter.

“There is a new general direction, a new direction, a new strategy and I have decided to leave, in good agreement with the management”explained Mr. Viers.

Provence had changed general manager at the end of July, Jean-Louis Pelé, until then at the head of the Nice-Matin group, replacing Gabriel d’Harcourt, from The Voice of the North at the head of the La Provence group in December 2022, following the acquisition of the group by the shipowner CMA CGM.

Contacted by AFP on Thursday, Pelé specified that Viers would be replaced by Olivier Biscaye, current editorial director of Free lunch.

“Termination by mutual agreement”

He affirmed that the departure of Mr. Viers would be effective “starting tomorrow”, Friday. He denied the words of the specialized media newspaper The letterensuring that“it was not ruled out” and so? “It is a breakup by mutual agreement”.

Mr. Viers added to leave. “for professional but also personal and family reasons.” “I am very proud of the work done with the teams, we increased web audiences, we launched a new application and new formats and we digitally transformed the newsroom”he added.

Former director of the video divisions of Parisian and of new observerhad been at the center of a crisis between the editorial staff and the management of the newspaper in March 2024, a crisis caused by the “front page” of the newspaper the day after a trip by the President of the Republic to Marseille for part of an operation against the drug trafficking.

Strike

According to the address, the title of this “headline” – “He [Emmanuel Macron] He’s gone and we’re still here…” – It could give the impression that the newspaper was giving a voice to the traffickers. The quote was clearly attributed on the inside page to a resident of an impoverished housing estate in the city where the head of state had visited.

Mr. Viers was fired before being reinstated following an editorial strike. He declined to comment on the incident Thursday, as he did at the time.

Rodolphe Saadé’s CMA CGM has increased its media investments since its 2022 acquisition of La Provence group (newspaper Provence AND Corsica-morning). He then acquired a stake in M6, bought The tribune and took control of Altice Media, parent company of BFM-TV in particular.