Yesterday, following a historical newsroom strike at the print paper on April 14 (in the wake of a planned 129 layoffs), Le Monde's board discussed projects to save 1,000 pages of content per year.

According to CBNews, this will be achieved by a better distribution of pages between the mid-week and weekend print editions, as well as the "rebalancing" of supplements.

In reality, Le Monde will simply have less staff to produce content. Of the 129 job cuts, 89 will affect the newsroom, including 45 for staff in charge of producing written content.

Although many papers around the world have been forced to trim down their print editions in an effort to cut costs, the situation in France is critical: every year, quality papers cut back on content, thus giving less incentive for readers to buy them, leading to decreased revenues and further cost and content cuts...

Some of London's freesheets already carry more content than many of France's quality, paid-for dailies.

Le Monde's plan to restructure could also call on the currently non-integrated journalists to work both for the print paper, supplements and the online edition.

Update: Journalists at Le Monde voted in a general staff assembly today, on April 16, to stage their second one-day strike in a week, protesting against the planned layoffs. Le Monde is scheduled not to appear on Thursday, April 17.

Source: CB News (link in French), AFP