Leading French daily Le Monde has faced accusations of censorship after it deleted an opinion piece that critically analyzed President Emmanuel Macron’s stance on Algeria, although the newspaper insisted it had contained an error of interpretation.
Le Monde issued a hugely unusual personal apology to Macron over the article, written by the researcher Paul Max Morin after the president made a hugely sensitive visit to the former French colony late last month.
In his article, Morin argued that a comment made by Macron in Algeria about a “love story that has its tragic element” glorified the colonial past and represented a step back from his previous attempts for a more modern attitude towards the history of France in the North African country.
“Reducing colonisation in Algeria to a ‘love story is the culmination of Macron’s shift to the right on the memory question,” Morin argued in the piece.
But Le Monde said that it had later deleted the piece as Morin had misinterpreted the quote.
“While it could be subject to different interpretations, the phrase ‘a love story that has its tragic element’ used by Mr Macron did not specifically refer to colonisation — as was written in the piece — but the long history of relations between France and Algeria,” it said.
“Le Monde apologises to its readers as well as the president of the Republic,” it added.
But the move was followed by a torrent of criticism.
Jean-Luc Melenchon tweeted, “An op-ed was pulled for a quote Macron made which he did not like, It is a new low in the collapse of a newspaper that was once a point of reference.”
Edwy Plenel, a former editor-in-chief of Le Monde who went on to found the investigative website Mediapart said “Staggering censorship”.
The writer, Morin himself told the Liberation daily that “pulling a piece is an abnormal practice and incomprehensible.”
Leading French economist Thomas Piketty also had something to say about it calling it Inexplicable and inexcusable censorship by Le Monde. “We can disagree with the piece, but not delete it because it displeases the Elysee.”
The controversy is doubly sensitive given it was Le Monde which in October 2021 quoted closed-door comments by Macron describing Algeria’s system as “politico-military” that prompted a new crisis in relations with Algiers. Macron in his speeches is said to portray himself as a champion of the free press but there have been episodes in the past that, according to critics, reveal a more thin-skinned attitude
