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Le Monde Ousts Top Manager

PARIS — Only weeks after a group of French businessmen completed their takeover of Le Monde, the newspaper on Wednesday replaced its top manager, who had complained of “moral harassment” by the new owners.

Le Monde said the official, Éric Fottorino, had been ousted from his key role as president of the management board, where he will be succeeded by Louis Dreyfus, an adviser to Matthieu Pigasse, a Lazard banker who bought a controlling stake in Le Monde with Pierre Bergé, co-founder of the Yves Saint Laurent fashion house, and Xavier Niel, a telecommunications entrepreneur.

Le Monde, citing “differences of opinion between the management and the shareholders,” said Mr. Fottorino would also step down from his role as director, a post that includes some of the functions of the publisher at English-language newspapers, when a replacement is named early next year. Mr. Dreyfus is also taking on the duties of director general, a top business-side post that had been held by an ally to Mr. Fottorino, David Guiraud.

The changes will tighten the new owners’ control over Le Monde after their financial lifeline, extended over the summer, saved the paper from a date in bankruptcy court.

Mr. Fottorino had favored their offer over a rival approach from a group that included France Télécom, the Spanish publisher Prisa and the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.

The support from Mr. Fottorino, a former reporter and published author, was seen as influential in persuading journalists at Le Monde to accept the bid, which required them to yield some of their considerable power over management.

But Mr. Fottorino lost the support of some journalists when he published an editorial last month, as the deal was closed, in which he urged the newspaper to “write a new page” under its new owners. Dozens of journalists, seeing this as a repudiation of Le Monde’s traditions, signed a petition criticizing him.

Relations between Mr. Fottorino and the new owners then deteriorated in even more spectacular fashion. In an e-mail message to Mr. Dreyfus that has been circulated widely, Mr. Fottorino accused the new owners of backtracking on commitments to support his strategic plans for the paper and suggested that Mr. Dreyfus was fronting a campaign to get him to quit.

“This managerial moral harassment, which shows its face but refuses to speak its name, is not only intolerable, at a time when you are being cited in the press as the future director general of the group,” Mr. Fottorino wrote. “Such practices also seriously undermine the image of Le Monde itself, as well as its shareholders.”

A version of this article appears in print on   in The International Herald Tribune. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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