PARIS (AFX) - Staff at France Soir -- a once-great French newspaper that has been fighting to survive in recent years -- demonstrated in Paris on Friday over job cuts planned by the paper's new owners.
About 50 France Soir employees rallied outside the culture ministry to ask the state to help overturn a court ruling handing control of the paper to a pair of entrepreneurs who intend to cut its staff in two.
Real estate developer Jean-Pierre Brunois and sports journalist Olivier Rey intend to keep on 51 of the paper's 112 employees and relaunch France Soir as a popular newspaper focused on sports, horse racing and show business gossip.
Staff have been on strike since the court decision on Wednesday, and were occupying the paper's headquarters, which were due to be turned over to the new ownership Friday at midnight.
France Soir on Friday ran a special edition, with the word 'Resistance' splashed across the front page, to press their case with the public.
The politics and culture pages were left blank, to reflect the planned closure of both departments, along with the photography and research services.
Founded in 1944, France Soir evolved out of a clandestine publication started by the French Resistance to become the only French title to pass the million-copy mark, with an average of 1,115,000 copies sold daily in 1961.
Since then, France Soir, today competing against 11 other national dailies, has seen its circulation collapse from 520,000 in 1975 to 228,900 in 1990, to just 45,000.
The paper was placed under court administration in October, a procedure designed to help struggling companies avoid bankruptcy by finding a new buyer.
Staff had backed a rival takeover bid by the Moscow News media group, owned by Russian tycoon Arcadi Gaydamak -- who is the target of an international arrest warrant issued by France over an alleged arms-for-oil deal with Angola.
Moscow News acquired France Soir's publisher, Presse Alliance, in March. newsdesk@afxnews.com afp/ak COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2005. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News. AFX News and AFX Financial News Logo are registered trademarks of AFX News Limited
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