The crisis gripping France’s Le Monde newspaper

Once one of France’s most respected publications, Le Monde is in crisis. Its newsroom is gripped by a climate of fear, where only left-wing and woke views are tolerated, and dissenters whisper their frustrations in the shadows. Once a beacon of intellectual rigour and fearless reporting, an investigation by its rival Le Figaro paints a damning picture of a newspaper strangled by ideological conformity and toxic cancel culture. ‘People are afraid; it’s an omerta,’ admits one anonymous journalist. The glory days of Le Monde are gone, replaced by a paper which appears to be more concerned with parroting the ideological consensus than holding power to account. 

Le Figaro’s investigation reveals a newsroom gripped by ideological rigidity, internal strife, and a culture of self-censorship. Examples abound: its recent coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been accused of omitting critical context and crossing the line into anti-Israel bias. Reports on sensitive domestic issues, such as immigration, have similarly been criticised for framing debates through a narrow ideological lens.