Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The circulation of all nine French national newspapers is 1.4m, compared with around 12m for Britain’s daily nationals.
In a slumping French market, regional papers outsell nationals and new free titles have increased competition. In 2004 the aerospace tycoon Serge Dassault acquired the conservative daily Le Figaro. Le Monde, which had been owned by its staff, sold a 15 per cent stake in 2005 to Arnaud Lagardere, chairman of a defence and media group. Liberation turned to Edouard de Rothschild in April last year. In the first quarter of this year the paper lost 2.5m euros.
