Right of Reply: Paris Match
Following the publication of this article, Mediapart received on Saturday June 26th a right of reply from Paris Match, its managing editor Hervé Gattegno and journalist François de Labarre which we publish below. Mediapart obviously disputes the claim that we published false information. Our article factually reported the judicial investigations in an investigation into “witness tampering” and “criminal conspiracy”.
Right of Reply:
“Your article of June 25th headlined 'Sarkozy-Libyan funding case: the bizarre inside story of attempted manipulation” in which you point the finger at several Paris Match journalists contains false information and mistaken interpretations that have to be rectified in order for your readers to have a full understanding.
It is completely false to claim that a senior figure in our editorial team explained to the author of the report on Ziad Takieddine that he had to keep quiet about the role of the Bestimage agency “because of its known closeness to Nicolas Sarkozy”. Nothing of this kind features in the exchange of messages that you claim to report, any more than it does in the judicial document that you mention.
Your interpretation of an “exchange of SMS messages” that you describe as “revealing” between the author of the report and the managing editor is completely without foundation. When François de Labarre writes “it feels like witness tampering” it's done ironically, reacting to certain suspicious comments coming from newspapers other than ours. In fact, the exchange in question dates from March 2021, in other words four months after our report was published – something you did not take the trouble to note even though this chronology is vital. Paris Match's journalists did not get involved in any witness tampering.
The link that you make between Nicolas Sarkozy being a member of the Lagadère group's supervisory board and the articles published in Paris Match is inappropriate. As everyone knows, this post gives him absolutely no position to intervene in the content of our publication. Paris Match's journalists are no less independent than those at Mediapart.
You wrongly criticise us for not having “made public” the role played by Mimi Marchand, director of Bestimage agency, and Noël Dubus, whom you describe as “key figures”, insinuating that this betrays the fact that there was some wrongdoing to hide. The reality is quite simple: the report was signed by its writers, a practice which conforms perfectly to custom and ethics.
It is unjustified to describe as “curious” the fact that in our second article about Ziad Takieddine the photographs of the person concerned signing his written retraction before a Lebanese public notary were not “credited” which is, you write “very rare for a magazine known for the impact of its photos”. It is very clearly customary for Paris Match to publish photographs which are not credited to a photographer – that's the case virtually every week, as all your readers can easily check.
You rely on, without distancing yourself from, the alleged comments by Noël Dubus to judges or the police claiming that Hervé Gattegno took part in the writing of the written retraction by Ziad Takieddine. Assuming that such comments were made, we deny the content. In an article dates June 7th Mediapart portrayed this figure as a “fraudster already convicted in the past”: should that not cause one to regard his possible declarations with caution?
We found and questioned a key figure in a judicial investigation relating to an issue of public interest, then revealed new information of a nature so as to inform the public about this affair. We want to state that Paris Match did not take part in any “staging” but restricted itself to carrying out its profession with respect for the law and ethics. It involved journalism and that alone.”