Paris court orders France Soir to be liquidated

The newspaper France Soir, owned by Alexander Pugachev, will be liquidated. This decision was made the day before by the Paris Commercial Court, which rejected all proposals received to purchase the publication.

On July 23, the Paris Commercial Court made a final decision in the case of the France Soir newspaper, owned by the son of Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachev, Alexander. The court ordered the liquidation of the publication, putting up for auction the trademark, domain, archives and all digital material, as well as reprint rights. The sale is expected to begin in the next few weeks.

France Soir was founded in 1944. The newspaper has 49 employees, of which 42 are directly journalists. In 2009, the publication was acquired by Alexander Pugachev, the son of Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachev. The entrepreneur expected to increase newspaper sales from 22 thousand to at least 100 thousand copies per day thanks to the new concept and the arrival of new journalists. But after a short period of success, sales began to fall again. In January 2011, France Soir management made another attempt to save the publication, again changing the concept and increasing the retail price of the newspaper (from €0.5 to €0.6). However, this strategy also turned out to be unsuccessful: the volume of the newspaper had to be reduced, and the cost of the issue increased again (to €0.8).

On August 29, 2011, France Soir went to court for protection from creditors for six months. However, already in November, Alexander Pugachev, who poured a total of €75 million into France Soir, announced that he was ready to sell the newspaper for a symbolic sum of €1, but a buyer was never found. In mid-December, the newspaper finally abandoned the paper version and switched to online content, focusing on smartphones and tablets.

In July of this year, Robert Lafont, CEO of Lafont Presse, made an offer to purchase France Soir. The entrepreneur was willing to pay €56 thousand and invest another €1 million to €2 million, maintaining the online version and restoring the printed version. True, his plan involved retaining only six employees. This proposal, described by the editors of France Soir as “outrageous,” was unanimously rejected by the union. Cards Off (a payment company specializing in online commerce) also sent France Soir a letter of intent to acquire the website francesoir.fr for €50,000. The developer and former owner of the newspaper, Jean-Pierre Brunois, was considering the offer. However, the court was not satisfied with any of these proposals.

Tamila Jojua

France was left without an evening