Le Monde diplomatique

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This monthly magazine is not to be mistaken for the daily "Le Monde".

Le Monde diplomatique

Type	Monthly Magazine
Format	Berliner

Owner
Editor	Ignacio Ramonet
Founded
Political allegiance	Left
Language	French
Headquarters	France

Website: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/

Le Monde diplomatique (nicknamed "Le Diplo" by its French readers) is a monthly publication offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. Its articles are long, thoughtful, scholarly, and opinionated, usually from an uncompromising leftist position. First created mainly for a diplomatic audience, as its name implies, it has in recent years taken a critical view on the effects of supposed economic neoliberalism on the world and its population.

It thus includes articles both of a neutral, scholarly nature, and more opiniated pieces which qualify as advocacy journalism. However, its analysis and articles, because of their seriousness and accuracy, are still read by scholars and people on the entire political spectrum. Since the 1970s, its editorial line has become decidedly altermondialist and left-wing. Throughout the Cold War, it had a neutralist viewpoint, often critical of US foreign policy.

Today headed by Ignacio Ramonet, the original French edition has a circulation of about 350,000; sixteen editions in other languages bring the total to about 1.4 million readers worldwide. Jean-Marie Colombani, editor of the daily Le Monde, was attributed by Le Monde diplomatique's director general Bernard Cassen as saying: "Le Monde diplomatique is a journal of opinion; Le Monde is a journal of opinions." ^[1]

1 1954 creation and history
2 Le Monde diplomatique SA
3 Today's diffusion and advertising
4 References
5 External links

[edit] 1954 creation and history

Le Monde diplomatique was founded in 1954 by Hubert Beuve-Méry, founder and director of Le Monde, the French newspaper of record. Subtitled "organ of diplomatic circles and of large international organisations, ^[2]" it was diffused at 5.000 exemplaries and was composed of eight pages, dedicated to foreign policy and geopolitics.

Its first editor in chief, François Honti, made of the newspaper a scholarly reference. Honti follows with attention the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement, created out of the 1955 Bandung Conference, and the "Third World"'s issues.

Claude Julien became the newspaper's second editor in January 1973. At this time, Le Monde diplomatique's diffusion had jumped from 5.000 to 50.000 exemplaries, and would reach, with Micheline Paulet, 120.000 en less than twenty years ^[3]. Without renouncing its "Third-worldism" position, it extends the treatment of its subjects, concentrating on international economic and monetary problems, strategics relations, Middle-East conflict, etc. Le Monde diplomatique took an independent stance, criticizing the neoliberalism ideology and policies of the 1980s, represented by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

After the November 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the newspaper made an important turn, and criticized the "American crusade" ^[3]. Ignacio Ramonet was elected director in January 1991. Le Monde diplomatique analyzed the post-Cold War world, paying specific attention on the "ethnics" conflicts (wars in former Yugoslavia, 1994 Rwandan Genocide, conflicts in the Caucasus, etc.) as well as to the new information technology.

After having published a famous editorial in January 1995 where Ramonet coined the term "pensée unique" ("single thought") to describe the supremacy of the neoliberalism ideology ^[4], the newspaper supported the November-December 1995 general strike in France against Prime minister Alain Juppé's (RPR) plan to cut pensions. Three years later, after a proposal in a 1997 editorial by Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde diplomatique took a founding role in the creation of ATTAC, an alter-globalization NGO, which was originally founded for advocacy of the Tobin tax, and which has since extended itself in the whole world.

It now supports a variety of left-wing causes.The newspaper also takes an important role in the organisation of the 2001 Porto Alegre World Social Forum. After the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Second Gulf War starting in 2003 under the George W. Bush administration, Le Monde diplomatique continue its position of criticizing the US policy of violent intervention in the Middle East and the neoconservatives' project of the reshaping of the so-called "Greater Middle East" region.

The Norwegian version of the July 2006 Le Monde diplomatique sparked interest when they ran, on their own initiative, a three page main story on the 9/11 attacks and summarized the various types of 9/11 conspiracy theories (which were not specifically endorsed by the newspaper, only recensed) ^[5] . The Voltaire Network, which has somehow changed position since the September 11 attacks and whose director, Thierry Meyssan, became a leading proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theory, explained that although the Norwegian version of Le Monde diplomatique had allowed it to translate and publish this article on its website, the mother-house, in France, categorically refused it this right, thus displaying an open debate between various national editions ^[6]. In December 2006, the French version published an article by Alexander Cockburn, co-editor of CounterPunch, which strongly criticized the endorsement of conspiracy theories by the US left-wing, alleging that it was a sign of "theoretical emptiness." ^[7] The Norwegian Le Monde Diplomatique, did again however mark it difference from the mother edition by allowing David Ray Griffin's response to Cockburn be published in their March 2007 issue ^[8].

[edit] Le Monde diplomatique SA

The monthly became a subsidiary company of Le Monde SA in 1996, which grants its complete editorial autonomy from Le Monde. André Fontaine, the director of Le Monde, had already signed in 1989 a convention with Claude Julien which guaranteed the monthly's autonomy, but it gains a complete statutory, economic and financial independence in 1996 with the creation of Le Monde diplomatique SA. With a donation from Günter Holzmann, a German antifascist exiled before World War II in Bolivia, the monthly's employees acquired approximatively 1/4 of the capital, while Les Amis du Monde diplomatique, a 1901 law association of readers, buy another 1/4. Thus, since the end of 2000, the newspaper's employees and the readers detain 49% of Le Monde diplomatique SA's capital, largely above the control stock ^[9] necessary to control the direction and editorial line of the Monde diplo. The remaining 51% is owned by Le Monde ^[3].

[edit] Today's diffusion and advertising

The original French edition has a circulation of about 350,000; sixteen editions in other languages bring the total to about 1.4 million readers worldwide.

Although Le Monde diplomatique publishes few advertisements in order to retain its editorial independency, it has been sometimes criticized for the quantity and nature of the published advertisements^{[citation needed]}. In November and December 2003 2-page advertisements by IBM and a car manufacturer were placed. The issues of February and March 2004 contained advertisements by Microsoft in a 'social' atmosphere with a picture of children, which led to irritation from free software activists^{[citation needed]}.