Journalists at Le Monde, one of France's most respected newspapers, went on strike for only the second time in the paper's history on Monday to protest heavy cuts in newsroom staff.
The generally left-leaning Le Monde, which says it is read by some 2 million people every day, is one of the country's most influential newspapers with extensive contacts in the French establishment and an uncompromisingly intellectual tone.
But like other newspaper groups, it has been struggling with mounting production costs, declining advertising revenues and increased competition from the Internet as well as the popularity of weekly magazines.
The strike, which stopped Tuesday's edition from appearing, was the first time Le Monde journalists have gone on strike since 1976, when they joined a protest against the acquisition of the daily France Soir by media tycoon Robert Hersant.
It is the first time they have gone on strike to protest a development within their own company.
"We are an independent newspaper of reference and that has its price," said Michel Delberghe, a journalist at the newspaper and a representative of the CFDT union who joined striking colleagues at the Le Monde glass headquarters in southern Paris.
Here's an earlier post.
Essentially, Le Monde's new management wants to whack 130 staff. One-quarter of its 340 journalists were to be included in that total -- about 80 bodies.
This will staunch the bleeding and return the paper to profitability by 2010, the owners say.
The workers say this won't fix other problems, like the paper's inability to deliver copies to readers who have trouble getting the paper outside Paris in a timely way.
And lest you think Le Monde is the only paper suffering problems in France:
Le Monde's main rivals, the conservative Le Figaro and the leftwing Liberation have both struggled with similar problems and Liberation went through a brutal restructuring of its own last year.