On the day that the New York Times, venerable titan of the US press, sacked its editor, the same thing happened in France at Le Monde, the country’s similarly liberal – and earnest – flagship newspaper, reports The Financial Times.
There were similar suspicions of sexism in France over the forced resignation of Natalie Nougayrède as those prompted by the ouster of Jill Abramson in New York.
But the problems confronting the French newspaper business are arguably deeper than those facing its US counterpart – and some say emblematic of the country’s problems at large.
Ms Nougayrède was forced to quit when not just her staff but also the majority of her senior editors rebelled over plans to tilt resources decisively towards Le Monde’s online operations away from the daily newspaper, famous for its dense coverage of world affairs and its eccentric publication time of mid-afternoon.
Le Monde, founded at the end of Nazi occupation in 1944, has a growing online subscription business which its owners insist is profitable and laying the foundations of a bright future. But it has yet to fully merge its newspaper and online staffs, most journalists still work for the former and internally most prestige still attaches to the print product.
Read more of this report from The Financial Times.