| We really do need a graphic for schadenfreude ... |
Just four years on and the national newspaper group is struggling to pay for the architectural masterpiece - which it rents for €1m a month - amid mounting losses and falling sales. Instead of hosting a multimedia empire to keep France's prestigious paper of record independent, the building has been the scene of the group's first strikes over company policy and the worst crisis in its 64-year history.
Le Monde's 340 staff have been given an ultimatum: unless enough apply for redundancy by next Monday, the paper will lose the independence that has marked it out from its privately owned competitors. Unions have estimated that between 90 and 130 people - one fifth of the editorial staff - will have to leave to help make savings of €9.4m demanded by the company.
| As Admiral Potemkin so famously observed, "That which ceases to grow begins to rot." |