Question 31161 — press and books

Summary

Mrs. Muriel Ressiguier alerts the Minister of Culture about the situation of the paper press. For several years, despite an increase in the number of readers, the paper press has seen its number of sales decline, in favor of the digital version. Thus, between 2017 and 2018 it fell by 5.9% when digital technology jumped by 25.9%. During confinement, the paper press suffered from a very sharp drop in sales and its income linked to Sales of advertising space have collapsed. For several years, advertisers have favored digital media for their advertisements, leading to a sharp reduction in revenues formerly intended for the paper press. Thus, Presstalis, formerly “new Parisian press messaging services/NMPP”, the leading distributor of the French press, which provides 75% of distribution, was very hard hit by the crisis. sanitary. Already weakened for several years, its turnover had fallen by 23.3% in 2018, the group now risks disappearing. Placed in receivership on May 15, 2020, 900 employees of the group are affected. Thus, 130 employees of Presstalis and 515 employees of its subsidiaries SAD and SOPROCOM placed in liquidation without continuing activity, will lose their jobs. Proposals for resumptions have, however, been advanced, including a plan presented in agreement with the 3 unions FO/CGT/CGC and management. The CGT also proposed to redistribute the management so that the distribution areas of the former Presstalis subsidiaries are entrusted to dismissed employees so that they can organize themselves into cooperatives. In 2013, MP Buffet tabled a bill aimed at recovering the press sector and its distribution, in the service of pluralism and the general interest, in which it already proposed the creation of a single cooperative of press distribution couriers, which reinforces the cooperative principle resulting from the Bichet law. On the financial level, the bill proposed the reallocation of aid for the distribution and dissemination of the press to the service of the general interest and the establishment of a tax on online advertising for the service funding for the pluralist and citizen press. The State must also act, lasting solutions must be found, in particular by preserving the Bichet law which guarantees respect for the pluralism of ideas by allowing any publisher to be distributed throughout the territory. Threatened many times with repeal since, it was weakened in 2019 by the law on “Modernization of press distribution” which organizes the opening of the market and the competition between press distribution cooperatives in 2023. During his hearing in the Cultural Affairs and Education Committee on June 10, 2020, the president and director of Presstalis pointed out this competition, which, according to him, contributed greatly to increasing the group's difficulties. The Paris commercial court validated the Presstalis takeover plan filed by the Distribution Cooperative daily newspapers on July 1, 2020 and authorized the creation of the new structure, “France Messagerie”, which now replaces Presstalis. But it only keeps a small part of the employees and will only employ 269 people, compared to just over 900 before it went into receivership. Recently in a column published in “Libération”, the National Union of Journalists also warned about the situation of the press written: "While the Government is working on new avenues of support for the media, the National Union of Journalists (SNJ), the profession's leading organization, considers that aid to the press must be conditional on social and ethical requirements, and that this public money must be used to strengthen the independence and pluralism of the media, under article 34 of the French Constitution (...). He is big time to get the information sector out of the purely accounting and financial logic that is leading it to its downfall.” This is why she asks what role the State plans to play in safeguarding jobs and ensuring the long-term and viable distribution of all titles throughout the territory.

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