Democratie in the Newsroom

It was a standard political campaign in many ways. The candidates, a large and somewhat ragged field at the outset, spent months buttonholing prospective voters and sweating through long question-and-answer sessions. Gradually the field was narrowed to two men who disagreed on the issues. Finally, a winner was chosen. His prize was not a political office, though in France some might regard it as the next best thing to being President.

The 200 editorial staff members of Le Monde (circ. 500,000), the most influential journal in France, last week elected their next director, Claude Julien, 55. After a tutorial two years under present Director Jacques Fauvet, 66, Julien will take over the paper in 1982, serving as chief editor and publisher, a position of major influence in the Fifth Republic. Founded in 1944 by Hubert Beuve-Mery, who was designated its first director by Charles de Gaulle, Le Monde is required daily reading for French government officials and diplomats around the world. Mixing first-rate reporting with a heavy dose of editorial opinion, Le Monde has managed to remain free of domination by any political party or any particular owner.

In fact, Le Monde has no particular owner; it has 700 of them. Since 1951 the daily has been owned by its employees, though they do not set the paper's policy. Beuve-Mery, sometimes referred to by staffers as "God," ran a taut one-man editorial operation for 25 years before handing over the reins in 1969 to his hand-chosen successor, Fauvet. Under Fauvet, Le Monde moved perceptibly left, supporting Socialist Party Leader Franc,ois Mitterrand in the 1974 presidential election won by center-right Candidate Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and showing sympathy for the brutal Cambodian Khmer Rouge. In response to increasing criticism from readers and public officials, Fauvet has in the past few years gently nudged Le Monde back toward the political center, most recently chiding French foreign policy for being too soft on the Soviets and too hard on the Americans.

That moderation may end when Julien takes charge. Editor of the paper's monthly supplement Le Monde Diplomatique since 1973, Julien is further to the left and more virulently anti-American than almost any other senior journalist on the staff. The son of a railway worker, he was educated in the U.S. at the University of Notre Dame, and joined Le Monde as a foreign news editor in 1951. His favorite editorial litany, honed to perfection in front-page editorials at Diplomatique, concerns the revolutionary struggle of Latin America to escape American influence. Says a longtime rival: "Julien turned Le Monde Diplomatique into an organ of demagogic Third-Worldism."

In fact, moderate Le Monde reporters were so concerned that Julien might win that they recalled the paper's top foreign correspondents to lead the opposition or offer themselves as candidates. But after three frustrating and exhausting months of unsuccessful balloting, it seemed that no candidate would ever get the required 60% of the vote. (Only editorial employees were voting; others were expected to ratify the result later.) The staff's love of this new exercise in democratic was diminishing steadily, along with opposition to Julien. Said one weary reporter: "We couldn't really think about anything else during this unending campaign."

A forceful and persuasive colleague, Julien finally overwhelmed his last opponent, moderate Peking Correspondent Alain Jacob, in the seventh round of voting. Of the new directeur's managerial skills, there is no question. At Le Monde Diplomatique, he cut costs and increased circulation. He promised during the campaign to work similar miracles at Le Monde and to restrain his own political views. "It was not a question of ideology, but Julien's great facility for talking," as one reporter put it. Said a young leftist on the staff: "He wears a tie and looks authoritative."

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