'Save Libération' campaign backed by Paris mayoral candidate Hidalgo

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/save-liberation-campaign-paris-mayor-anne-hidalgo

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Hundreds of people poured into the Paris offices of Libération on Saturday, when journalists opened their doors to the public in an effort to step up their campaign to save the ailing leftwing newspaper.

Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist party's candidate for Paris mayor, joined supporters of the paper of all ages as they crowded into the building at République, where front pages of the paper co-founded by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1973 were on display.

Downstairs they sold T-shirts and carrier bags inscribed with the battle cry "Libération, we are a newspaper", defying the title's shareholders who are preparing to shed journalists as part of a restructuring scheme.

On the upper floors of the offices, journalists provided tours and hosted debates on the future of the paper and of the French press in general, which has suffered from a dip in readership and advertising revenues.

There was standing room only in the eighth floor editorial conference room known as "le hublot" (the porthole), where journalists' union representative Olivier Bertrand dismissed reports that shareholders had attracted €12m (£10m) in new investment as only rumours.

Several readers lamented the decline of the paper, which has stumbled from crisis to crisis in recent years, and inquired about alternative forms of ownership and state assistance. But they were told that for legal reasons it was too early for the journalists to present counter-offers to the plans outlined by the main shareholders.

Despite the prevailing gloom, however, Libération's editorial director, Fabrice Rousselot, said he remained optimistic about the future.

Panellist Natalie Nougayrède, the editor-in-chief of Le Monde, whose owners have recently bought the loss-making weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, said: "There has never been such a need for quality journalism as now."