French daily papers are dying out

"Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential term risks marking the disappearance of national daily papers or the loss of independence of the few which survive", worries journalist Emmanuel Schwartzenberg. "The press crisis in France is nearing its climax. Not a single daily has been spared by lay-offs. Not a single one can balance its books...The current government [led by prime minister] Francois Fillon, like all its predecessors since the Second World War, believes that it is easier to govern with a weak, vulnerable press because it can survive only with support from the authorities. History has always demonstrated the opposite. The failure to understand society - one result of the lack of a press that informs - widens the rift between governed and government, so closing the gate to reform and opening the one to revolt. As May 68 showed."

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