The French luxury group LVMH announced on Tuesday the planned takeover of the magazines Challenges, Sciences et Avenir and La Recherche. According to a statement, the group wants to ensure their “continuance”.
The businessman Claude Perdriel, the previous majority shareholder, had agreed to the sale for a symbolic euro. He retired from the press world at the age of 99 after 60 years. LVMH, which belongs to billionaire Bernard Arnault, acquired a 40 percent stake in Éditions Croque Futur in 2020. The publisher publishes the three titles.
“This acquisition will allow Éditions Croque Futur to advance the development and distribution of its three titles, particularly in the digital sector, thereby contributing to their continued existence,” said LVMH. The group also wants to “promote high-quality information and scientific culture and its communication.”
However, in a joint statement, the journalist associations of the three magazines, their union representatives and the works council (CSE) described the sale as a “leap into the void”. “A real mistrust has developed” towards LVMH.
In November, the editors of Challenges, Sciences et Avenir and La Recherche asked Bernard Arnault to sign their ‘Charter of Independence’ in its current form. According to their own statements, this happened without success.
On Tuesday, together with the union representatives, they again called for “signs of goodwill”. These include: “credible future prospects; clear commitments on employment; the signing of the current Challenges Independence Charter and the granting of similar guarantees to Sciences et Avenir and La Recherche”.
Maurice Szafran is an advisor to Claude Perdriel and has just been appointed president of Éditions Croque Futur and publishing director of the three titles. He emphasized that the “common goal is to initiate economic restructuring in a press market that is more difficult and complex than ever before.”
“With LVMH’s active support, these common challenges become achievable,” he added in a message to editors, seen by AFP.
LVMH already owns, among other things, the group Les Échos-Le Parisien, which includes the daily newspapers of the same name and Radio Classique. This year the group also fully acquired the liberal daily L’Opinion and the financial news site L’Agefi, in which it already held shares.
The non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders and journalists’ unions appealed to the administrative court and the competition authority in December. They should examine the consequences of taking on challenges. Between July 2024 and June 2025, the weekly newspaper Challenges sold an average of 135,000 copies. The monthly magazine Sciences et Avenir had 175,000 copies, according to the Alliance pour les chiffres de la presse et des médias (ACPM). La Research is a quarterly magazine.
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