CNews (newspaper)

''CNews'' is a free French daily newspaper. Launched in Île-de-France on February 6, 2007, it was also known as ''MatinPlus'' (before 2008), ''Direct Matin Plus'' (from 2008 to 2010), ''Direct Matin'' (from 2010 to 2017), ''CNews Matin'' (in 2017), and ''CNews'' (after December 4, 2017, with the same name as the television news channel CNews owned by Canal+). It is owned by Bolloré, principally held by Vincent Bolloré.

The morning paper competes with '' 20 minutes'', a free newspaper distributed in the morning in Île-de-France. Its distribution includes 500,000 copies in Île-de-France and more than 900,000 in France. From 2006 to 2010, the free newspaper ''Direct Soir'' - also owned by the Bolloré group - was distributed in the evening.

MatinPlus is jointly published by the media groups La Vie-Le Monde (''Le Monde'') and Bolloré (Havas, and Direct 8 until 2011) through their subsidiaries Bolloré médias and Sofiprom. The MatinPlus SA group is held by the Bolloré group (70%) and ''Le Monde'' owns 30% with the possibility to own up to 50%.

It is the Paris bridgehead of the newsgroup VillePlus in association with ''La Dépêche du Midi'', ''Le Progrès'', ''La Provence'', '' Sud Ouest'' and '' La Voix du Nord''. They offer free daily newspapers in Montpellier (''CNews Montpellier Plus''), Lyon (''CNews Lyon Plus''), Marseille (''CNews Provence''), Bordeaux (''CNews Bordeaux'') and Lille (''CNews Lille'').

CNews is also distributed in Nantes (''CNews Grand Ouest''), Toulouse (''CNews Toulouse''), Nice (''CNews Côte d'Azur'') and Strasbourg (''CNews Strasbourg''), in a version similar to the one distributed in Paris.

It is published in the demi-berliner format, which allows for easy transportation - an important consideration since it is distributed in areas with public transportation.

History

In November 2006, François Bonnet, editor in chief of La Vie-Le Monde, responsible for ''Paris Plus'', announced to the Agence France-Presse that he was resigning from the new free newspaper because of editorial disagreements: François Bonnet indicated that the free paper was transformed into a kind of press paper where the content was not as important as the advertising space.

The question of "l'enjeu de l'information" - "the challenge of information" or, content versus advertising space, was rapidly coming to the surface in the history of the young newspaper. In the first instance, on May 25, 2008, Bolloré Média decided to censor an article from ''Courrier International''. The article was critical of the French police, and went against the neutrality of the newspaper, according to Jean-Christophe Thiéry, president of Bolloré-Média. In January 2009, an article that was a collaboration with Le Monde was censored. The article, written by Eric Nunès, exposed a marketing strategy that RATP used to collect digital data from users when users purchased a Navigo card. The article was associated with Direct Matin affairs. Direct Martin had a commercial contract with RATP concerning distribution of the newspaper in metro stations.
In addition, a subsidiary of Bollor�
(IER)
specializes in the transportation, access control, and RFID technology used by RATP for the Navigo cards. IER was a client of RATP.

Two free newspapers, ''Direct Matin Plus'' and ''Direct Soir'', were in the red in 2007 (40 million euros) and in 2008 (estimated 25 million euros). ''Direct Soir'' has not appeared since December 2010.

In January 2012, Bolloré announced the end of the partnership with Le Monde and Courrier International in Direct Martin. Le Monde retains its 30% holdings in MatinPlus SA.

On February 27, 2017, following the change of ''iTELE'' to ''CNews'', ''Direct Matin'' became ''CNews Matin''.

On December 4, 2017, ''CNews Matin'' becomes ''CNews'' in issue number 2,772, adopting the logo and the graphic of the television channel ''CNews''.

Visual identity (logo)

Editorial content

The paper is composed of between 28 and 32 pages, depending upon the amount of advertisements. The content in ''MatinPlus'' has color photographs with captions and articles written by journalists. The paper is divided into sections including sections for World news, news within France, Sports, a puzzle section, a television programming section, and a section about cuisine.

Initially and up to the year 2012, a section covering four pages of articles were included from ''Le Monde'', and an article was also included from Courrier International each day.

The influence of Vincent Bolloré's editing of ''CNews'' is very present: One is validated almost daily, according to a statement from one employee in the France section of the paper. The billionaire says the same thing, "Dans mes médias, j’ai le 'final cut' " - "In my companies, I have the final cut". Serge Nedjar, assistant to Vincent Bolloré and general director of the newspaper, chooses some of the topics to be written about, other topics are ignored.

France Info has reported that under the direction of Serge Nedjar, Direct Matin is very concerned not to displease politicians, regardless of their political party. There is an environment which discourages making waves. An ex-employee quoted from France Info said that Nejar is very "Sarkoziest" and that this was obvious when Sarkozy was in power. Even so, the ex-employee said, one cannot criticize François Hollande. Critical articles about Ségolène Royal and Arnaud Montebourg

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