RSF - Reporters sans frontières

12/18/2025 | Press release | Archived content

Sale of French magazine Challenges to luxury conglomerate LVMH: RSF and unions launch double offensive to uphold pluralism rules

The sale of French weekly business magazine Challenges, to luxury goods group LVMH -- which is already a shareholder in several business publications -- is set to be finalised by the end of December 2025. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the French National Union of Journalists (SNJ) and two other French unions for media professionals, the SNME-CFDT and the SNJ-CGT, have taken the matter to the Paris Administrative Court and France's Competition Authority. Their aim is to ask the state to review this sale due to concerns about media pluralism and editorial independence and denounce LVMH's abuse of its dominant position in the business and financial press market.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of luxury goods group LVMH, is already a shareholder in France's only national business daily, Les Échos. The acquisition of Challenges, the country's leading business weekly would add to LVMH's considerable portfolio of business publications and allow Bernard Arnault to exert control over all of the country's major business publications.

This concentration therefore risks limiting "external media pluralism" - the diversity of media outlets available in the market- and, ultimately, citizens' right to reliable, independent news from a plurality of sources. This right is affirmed in the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which came into force last August in the European Union (EU), of which France is a member state. This media concentration risk is particularly high given that Bernard Arnault has expressed his willingness to challenge the guarantees for editorial independence currently in place and change the editorial line of Challenges. These measures have been denounced by RSF, journalism trade unions, staff representatives, and the magazine's internal journalist association.

In this context, RSF and the SNJ have filed an urgent request with the Paris Administrative Court so that the merger control measures relating to media pluralism and editorial independence stipulated in Article 22 of the EMFA are implemented in France. At the same time, the French journalist trade unions, SNJ, SNME-CFDT, and SNJ-CGT have all referred the matter to the Competition Authority for a ruling on the abuse of the LVMH group's dominant position resulting from this transaction. Finally, RSF, the SNJ, and the SNME-CFDT also reaffirm their full support for the employees of Sciences et Avenir and La Recherche, the leading scientific journals also sold by Claude Perdriel - the French media mogul that currently owns Challenges- to LVMH, who are now concerned about their own future and editorial independence.

"The sale of Challenges to the luxury goods group LVMH - which owns 75 companies in six sectors, including a large part of the French business media market - is a textbook case of the French state's failure to implement clear provisions on media concentration. We repeat: editorial independence and media pluralism are not for sale. The legality of this transaction must be fully assured before it is finalised. Transposing the European Media Freedom Act into French law should have been done long ago - and the French government recognise that there are latent problems of editorial independence and media concentration.

Thibaut Bruttin
RSF Director General

"Defending press freedom and pluralism, as well as fighting media concentration, are essential for our organisations. We support the employees and elected representatives of Croque Futur (which includes Challenges, Sciences et Avenir, and La Recherche), and hope that the action taken, particularly with Reporters Without Borders, will lead to the swift implementation of measures designed to preserve editorial independence. The [ethics] charter currently applied at Challenges provides essential guarantees to its journalists, and the fact it is being called into question is very concerning to us. That is why our unions will use every means at their disposal to defend free, independent, and pluralist information.

The SNJ, SNME-CFDT, and SNJ-CGT

We hope that the actions taken by RSF and the journalist unions will make the public authorities and the actors concerned aware of the need to preserve media pluralism. Particularly by maintaining the guarantees of independence already acquired at Challenges, like its [ethics] charter, and obtaining such guarantees at Sciences et Avenir / La Recherche.

The internal journalist associations of Challenges and Sciences et Avenir / La Recherche and the representatives of the Business and Social Council of the three titles

Although the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which came into full effecton 8 August 8 2025, represents a major step forward by providing guarantees to preserve editorial independence and limiting the risks to pluralism due to media concentration in Europe, currently, it is not applied at the national level. This poses significant risks in the specific case of the acquisition of Challenges by LVMH - a sale soon to be finalised, despite LVMH's refusal to sign the ethics charter protecting the publication's independence and editorial line.

France ranks 25 out of 180 countries and territories in the World Press Freedom Index, and is regularly criticised for media concentration and lack of sufficient guarantees of editorial independence.

Published on18.12.2025
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