Maybe the right wing American media can update me on the reasons why they love Sarkozy and think he's the great hope of Europe. Giving newspapers away to 18 year olds? Really? From the newspapers perspective, I get that they want to keep their jobs but this is going to hurt them in the long run as they are already considered too cozy with whoever is in power. Now, the government is going to own them. This is sad all around.
The French president Nicolas Sarkozy today announced €600m (£565m) in emergency aid for his country's troubled newspaper indus try and declared that every 18-year-old in France would get a year's free subscription to the paper of their choice to boost reading habits.
The crisis-hit French press is among the least profitable in Europe, stifled by rigid communist print unions, a lack of kiosks selling papers and a declining readership far below that of the UK or Germany.
The public's trust in the media is at an all-time low in a climate where politicians rewrite their own interviews for publication and the president's powerful business friends, from construction to arms manufacturing, own several major papers or TV stations.
Sarkozy has been likened by his political opponents to Silvio Berlusconi for his recent moves to tighten state control of public TV.
But today he made no apology about turning his hand to print and online newspapers with a major speech instructing them to improve the content of their articles, bring in younger readers and transform business models in exchange for emergency aid worth €600m over the next three years.
