France's Virtuous Le Monde Comes Under Fire for Hypocrisy

Journalists at Le Monde, a monument of the French media, are awaiting nervously the publication on Wednesday of an iconoclastic book which claims the sober journal of record is dishonest, hypocritical and facing bankruptcy.

With a daily circulation of more than 400,000 copies, Le Monde's appearance each afternoon has been a key moment for opinion-makers ever since De Gaulle confiscated the collaborationist Le Temps to set up what many believed was the official voice of government in 1945.

But the sedate, almost photo-free, presentation and the ethics of its independent-minded founder, Hubert Beuve-Méry, gave Le Monde a special voice of authority and morality. This weekend, as the first extracts of the book leaked out, Le Monde said it would await publication before replying but already considered itself the victim of a smear campaign.

A decision by the top-selling weekly, L'Express, to break silence over the book, The Hidden Face of Le Monde, printed secretly in Spain, has added to expectations that irritation over the daily's supposedly unjustified reputation for morality will develop into a press war.

Denis Jeambar, L'Express's chief executive, said that behind Le Monde's idealistic mask was 'a thirst for power, that uses all the tools of power traditionally hunted down by the press: cynicism, denunciation, psychological pressure, abuse of position and autocracy. Today its credibility is at stake.'

The 600-page book, written by two investigative journalists, Philippe Cohen and Pierre Péan, accuses Le Monde's editor in chief, Jean-Marie Colombani; editor, Edwy Plenel; and supervisory board chairman, Alain Minc - an influential right-wing economist - of hijacking internal policy in a takeover in 1994.

The trio are alleged to have misused their power to help conservative political allies, allegedly covering up damaging scandals that might have harmed their careers. Accusations of attempted tax evasion are made against Colombani, who raised his salary by 85 per cent to £300,000 a year.

Perhaps the most damaging allegation for a paper in which journalists have much of the daily control is that the paper's executives have covered up the precarious financial situation with misleading annual reports.

L'Express, which claims Le Monde journalists live in a 'climate of fear', published 14 detailed pages but said it had chosen 'neither the cruellest nor the most shocking' revelations from a book which, according to Jeambar, undermined Le Monde's claims to the moral high ground.

The publication comes in the wake of a flurry of investigations accusing the press in general, and particularly Le Monde, of hidden political compromises that led to the failure to expose economic-political scandals over the past 25 years, particularly during the Mitterrand era.

Le Monde's case is unique, as the ruling triumvirate is said to have backed the 1995 presidential campaign of Gaullist former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, (Minc was one of his aides) against the eventual winner Jacques Chirac.

Having chosen the wrong side and then emphasising corruption charges against Chirac in the run-up to the 2002 election, Le Monde now has enemies across an administration that runs all France's main institutions.

Jean-Pierre Tailleur, author of a book on French press complacency, said it was fair to say the paper had lost the moral high ground over the past few years, but added: 'I hope the reality doesn't turn out to be just another example of backbiting and jealousy among rival journalists who hate each other and have scores to pay off.'