Minute (newspaper)
During its heyday (250,000 copies sold per week 1962–1981) the editorial staff were invited to participate every Sunday in Club de la presse, a television and radio show about politics.François Brigneau took on the chief editorship for a time but the extreme political tone with which he infused the paper led to his replacement, and he returned to his position of star editor.At the very beginning of the 1980s, sales of the paper, affected by the support shown to Jean-Marie Le Pen and the loss of investigative reporter such as Jean Montaldo (resigned in 1972), started to decline.For example, it helped to publicise the accusations by the daily l'Express against Georges Marchais (the communist leader who, unknown to most French people at the time, had volunteered to work in the Messerschmitt aircraft factory in Germany during the Second World War), and similar charges against Georges Guingouin, former leader of the wartime Maquis du Limousin.Among other famous Minute journalists was Patrick Buisson, historian of the Organisation armée secrète and, 30 years later, adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy.He transformed the paper into a more news-focussed format and the title became La France, with Minute only appearing as a subtitle or surtitle depending on the issue.That same year (1993), Gérald Penciolelli bought Minute with the intention of turning it back into its original form and abandoning the news focus.Minute has been regularly convicted of defamation, which has led to its inclusion in French Trivial Pursuit as the answer to "Which newspaper can boast the highest number of court proceedings?"This led to controversy among certain left-wing personalities, including Julien Dray, who protested at the significant number of deputies from the UMP who had agreed to interviews with Minute.In addition, the issue released before the world cup final was titled "Bye-bye hooligan" with a photo of Zinedine Zidane, who had been sent off the field after head-butting an Italian player who had insulted him.[6] Florian Philippot, for his part, described their analysis as "worthy of far-right conspirators from the inter-war period", suggesting "gay" was being used in the same way as "Jew", and accused the daily of "the lowest level of politics".The previous week National Front candidate Anne-Sophie Leclere had published a picture on Facebook comparing Taubira with a monkey, for which she was expelled from the party.