Journalists at daily Le Monde reported  the existence in the newsroom of a “Gaza wall” topped with a “Stop genocide” sticker, featuring images and articles stigmatizing “the massacres and atrocities carried out by Israel on Palestinian territory”.

The deputy editor-in-chief of the international service is said to have taken a stance against Israel on several occasions, and even to have allowed anti-Semitic terms to be passed on to the editors. Le Figaro also points to the trenchant positions of his wife, several of whose tweets bore the hashtag #FreePalestine on the day of the October 7th attacks.

 

Le Monde, a top daily newspaper in France, appears to be in turmoil following revelations that editors take up the cause of the Palestinian camp and even Hezbollah.

An investigation published Tuesday by another daily, Le Figaro, shows that Israel and Gaza are not subject to the same treatment in Le Monde.

According to the investigation,  Israel is being singled out, while Hamas and the inhabitants of Gaza are being defended by some of the editorial staff, including a deputy editor who is married to a pro-Palestinian activist.

In its investigation, based on anonymous testimonies from Le Monde employees, Le Figaro highlights “an omerta” (silence) that is said to exist within the editorial staff on this topic. “People are afraid”, a journalist told the newspaper.

Other colleagues report the existence in the newsroom of a “Gaza wall” topped with a “Stop genocide” sticker, featuring images and articles stigmatizing “the massacres and atrocities carried out by Israel on Palestinian territory”.

Israel is denounced as a “criminal state”, while ignoring the attacks of October 7, 2023, in which more than 1,200 people were killed.

A number of journalists have questioned this positioning in a newsroom that for decades has claimed to be as ‘’impartial as possible’’ in its treatment of the news.

At the same time, some articles are said to use deliberately pro-Palestinian vocabulary, even favorable to Hezbollah, referring to its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel on September 27, as a “martyr”. The newspaper had to correct the word, citing a typographical error.

The question of qualifying Hamas as a “terrorist organization” also seems to pose a problem for the daily’s international department, which would prefer to use the terms “Islamist” and “Palestinian movement”. “In the large portrait of Yahya Sinouar published on the day of his death (October 17, 2024), the term ‘terrorist’ is carefully avoided”, wrote Le Figaro.

The deputy editor-in-chief of the international service is said to have taken a stance against Israel on several occasions, and even to have allowed anti-Semitic terms to be passed on to the editors. Le Figaro also points to the trenchant positions of his wife, several of whose tweets bore the hashtag #FreePalestine on the day of the October 7th attacks.

According to Le Figaro, the discomfort pointed out by members of the editorial staff was also the subject of an internal investigation but it was closed without further action.

Interviewed by Le Figaro, Le Monde’s director Jérôme Fenoglio was keen to defend the deputy editor-in-chief, stating that his newspaper continued to work for “the unwavering defense of Israel’s existence, rooted in an awareness of the Shoah and a resolute rejection of anti-Semitism” and “the defense of the Palestinians’ legitimate right to self-determination, which would lead them to have their own state”.

The management said that “in no case is this individual commitment that of the Society department or of the editorial staff as a whole”.