Barber leaves the direction of The Express – Le Figaro

Nearly two years after taking control of the title by Altice, the boss of the editorial staff of the magazine is discarded.

The rumors of his departure were made more pressing in the last few weeks. Christophe Barbier, who was the editorial director of The Express for ten years, announced on Monday his departure from the head of the weekly. He will remain a consultant to the editorial.

last July, a series of appointments within the media activities of Altice (SFR Media), parent company of The Express, had given the the. Indeed, Guillaume Dubois, the ceo of BFMTV, had then been appointed patron of the branch press (The Express but also Student, Point of view or Studio Ciné Live, or Release) to drive the relaunch of the news magazine. Since this summer, Christophe Barbier, even if it had been confirmed at the head of the title, seemed increasingly isolated. This is William Dubois, who is proposed as new director of writing. His appointment will be “submitted to a vote of the members of the Society of journalists (SDJ) for The Express in the coming days,” said SFR Media.

After losing his title as director general of the group, The Express, and his cap editing director, Christophe Barbier was no longer “that” simple editorial director of the magazine. Since the school year began, Guillaume Dubois had carefully kept away.

The departure of Christophe Barbier is a logical next step. It marks a change of era. All the major news magazines are struggling, with sales in free-fall. The distribution of The Express fell to 300,000 copies, according to the latest figures of the CPMA-OJD, down from 22.5% in one year. The new formula launched last spring had no effect. Worse, sales in kiosks, which were supposed to bounce back, would have fallen to very low levels since the start of the year.

Christophe Barbier had taken the direction of The Express in 2006 after the departure of Denis Jeambar for the editions of the Threshold. These past few years have been challenging for the title. In the bosom of the belgian Roularta until February 2015, the weekly was heavily in deficit. Taken over by Altice Media, the newspaper was supposed to know about a course of unprecedented austerity to reduce its losses. In the framework of the assignment clause, which allows for journalists to from with legal entitlements after a change of shareholder, 115 employees have left the group The Express just after its purchase. And then, a year ago, or six months after this first wave, 125 employees have been the subject of a redundancy plan. The troops have since been bloodless.

at the time, Christophe Barbier had been taken to task by the employees who voted overwhelmingly against him in a motion of no confidence. In our columns, the boss of the editorial, however, was said to be “unfazed”, explaining that there was no reason to resign, acknowledging of “emotion” in the drafting, but denouncing in the same time of “turmoil”.

Appointed as a consultant editor, Christophe Barbier, the man in the red scarf, should continue to represent The Express in the media group Altice.