The management of the Les Échos-Le Parisien group, owned by the luxury giant LVMH, announced on Tuesday a reorganization aimed at eliminating around sixty positions outside the editorial offices, to save money in a context of press crisis, we learned from reliable sources.
As revealed by the L’Informé site, management promised to “limit forced departures as much as possible” in an email to employees, after announcements to staff representatives.
The objective of eliminating 61 positions (in full-time equivalents) targets commercial functions, in advertising management or IT services, indicated a union source. This number of positions represents 3% of the total workforce, according to a source close to the matter.
“Despite the efforts made in recent years, the recurring losses of our media activity are no longer sustainable in the long term,” said the general director of the LVMH press division, Michèle Benbunan, in her email to employees.
The economic model of the sector turned upside down
The luxury giant, led by billionaire Bernard Arnault, had bailed out the newspaper Le Parisien/Aujourd’hui in France to the tune of 150 million euros in November 2025 to make up for the title’s losses (30 million euros in 2024), after a tumultuous period when the daily was the subject of rumors of sale to conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
Announcements of job cuts have multiplied in recent months in the press, in Center France (La Montagne, Le Populaire du Centre), Ebra (L’Est Républicain, Le Progrès, Le Dauphiné Libéré), Prisma (Geo, Capital, Femme Actuelle, Voici…), Bayard (La Croix) and even Marie-Claire.
The sector’s economic model is being disrupted by new sources of information such as social networks and large digital platforms, which also capture part of the advertising revenues of traditional media.
At the end of 2025, the LVMH group bought out in bulk the economic magazine Challenges and the scientific titles Sciences et Avenir and La Recherche, all three brought together within Éditions Croque Futur. Five months later, he announced his intention to sell the two scientific journals to concentrate on the recovery of Challenges.
