Paris Match announced a change of editor today amid a row over compromising photographs of Éric Zemmour, the far-right pundit who is expected to run for the French presidency, reports The Times.
Hervé Gattegno lost his job as editor a month after putting on the magazine’s front cover a photograph of Zemmour, 63, embracing Sarah Knafo, his 28-year-old assistant, on the French Riviera.
The scoop angered Zemmour, who announced that he was taking legal action for breach of privacy, but it did nothing to stop his rise to the forefront of the French political scene on the back of his attacks on immigration and Islam.
Even though the “French Donald Trump”, as he has been called, has not yet formally announced that he is standing for the presidency next year, polls put him on about 16 per cent of the vote, presaging a neck-and-neck race with his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, for the right to challenge President Macron, in the spring election.
Journalists at Paris Match say the photo irritated Vincent Bolloré, the billionaire import-export tycoon from Brittany who has acquired a media empire and who is now the main shareholder in Lagardère, the group that owns the weekly.