“La Provence” on strike: no paper version of the newspaper since Sunday

For the second consecutive day, the regional daily La Provence was not printed this Monday, May 5, due to a renewable strike voted on Saturday at the call of the Filpac-CGT, after the announcement of a job protection plan which "directly threatens dozens of jobs" , mainly among printers, according to the union. On Sunday and Monday, only the digital version of the title, which sells some 65,000 copies per day on average in Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Hautes-Alpes, was available online.

La Tribune Dimanche , a Sunday weekly which, like the La Provence group (including the regional dailies La Provence and Corse-Matin ), belongs to the shipping company CMA CGM, owned by Rodolphe Saadé , has also not appeared in paper version in the south-east, south-west and Rhône-Alpes regions.

The social movement was decided after "the announcement, on April 29, of a brutal and unilateral job protection plan (PSE), which directly threatens dozens of jobs" , indicated the Filpac-CGT in a press release, demanding "the pure and simple cancellation of this PSE" .

According to a union representative, the plan would affect 75 jobs, including 51 at the printing works, a "social massacre," according to this source. A new general meeting was expected to decide late Monday evening on a possible extension of the strike. " Provence is a common good. It is not just about accounting lines. We are defending our jobs, but also a certain idea of ​​the press: free, local, and of quality. The struggle [...] will continue until the plan is withdrawn," adds the Filpac-CGT press release.

Referring to a PSE concerning 72 employees, including 51 from the current La Provence printing house, Jean-Christophe Tortora, CEO of CMA Media, the media holding company of CMA CGM , which also owns BFMTV and RMC radio, assured this Monday evening that "a redeployment proposal will be made for each of the employees" concerned. Twenty-five redeployment proposals will be made in particular within the new printing house that CMA Médias will acquire in Vitrolles, around thirty kilometers from Marseille, Tortora specified, recalling that the current printing house of the La Provence group in Marseille will be forced to close in September.

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"This is not our decision, the sale of Salengro [the Marseille site, editor's note] was decided before the takeover of La Provence by CMA CGM in October 2022," insisted the CEO of CMA Media, believing that with the acquisition of the Vitrolles printing works, the newspaper will have "its own industrial tool, which it deserves." Among the other employees targeted by the PSE, some will be offered early retirement, others redeployment within CMA CGM.

According to Jean-Christophe Tortora, CMA Media's decision to opt for the Vitrolles site, where the daily newspaper La Marseillaise is already printed, is also the consequence of the difficulties encountered by the group in finding a site for a new printing works, due to the "issues of acceptability" by the municipalities of these industrial installations, "with their nuisances" .

CMA Media had considered a new printing plant in Le Cannet-des-Maures or Le Muy, two communes in the Var region, without success, according to Tortora. He also mentioned the new "clear" refusal this Monday by the State to support any new press printing plants, preferring to favor "the pooling of existing printing plants."