French investigative website starts new chapter with all-female leadership

Journalist Carine Fouteau is to take over from the iconic Edwy Plenel at the helm of Mediapart, the investigative website announced Thursday. All four main leadership positions at the company are now held by women.

The office of Mediapart in Paris. AFP - JOEL SAGET

Fouteau, 49 is now the president and editor-in-chief of Mediapart replacing its co-founder, Plenel, aged 71.

"This long-prepared step is taken in accordance with our values, which always put collective intelligence above personal adventures," she said in a text posted on the site.

Plenel, was director of Le Monde's editorial team from 1996 to 2004 and an emblematic figure of investigative journalism in France.

Cofounder of the French investigative website Mediapart, Edwy Plenel. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

He co-founded Mediapart in 2008 with François Bonnet, Laurent Mauduit, and Marie-Hélène Smiejan.

In February, Plenel, the last of the co-founders still on the management team, announced that he would step down as president but said he would continue to write.

Carine Fouteau succède à Edwy Plenel

👉‍ Une nouvelle présidente et directrice de la publication pour Mediapart, par @edwyplenel : https://t.co/oIfQY5jL87

👉‍ Des faits et du sens : notre exigence dans un monde disjoncté, par @CarineFouteau : https://t.co/2fWHUVUiGu pic.twitter.com/p2UMe3y2mw

— Mediapart (@Mediapart) March 14, 2024

All four four main leadership positions at Mediapart are now held by women: Fouteau, Cécile Sourd (general manager since 2023), Lenaïg Bredoux and Valentine Oberti (editorial directors since 2023).

Fouteau has worked for Mediapart since the founding of the publication. Previously she worked for the economic daily Les Echos after it was taken over by the luxury group LVMH.

Before taking the helm of the investigative site, she worked on migration issues and was co-editorial director from 2018 to 2023.

"Our project is to make Mediapart a major popular newspaper, which both disturbs and unites, through the strength and quality of its information," she said.

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Mediapart had almost 220,000 subscribers in 2023, about 60,000 more than in 2022.

The turnover is €22.45 million (€21.23 million in 2022) and it reported a net profit of nearly €2.3 million (€2.6 million in 2022).

The company has 137 employees, including 65 journalists.

Mediapart says it is able to guarantee independence thanks to the fact that it relies only subscriptions and secured capital since 2019.

According to Fouteau, in its 16 years of existence, the left-leaning website "has established itself as an indispensable power" thanks to its investigations of political scandals, police violence, or sexual violence.

(With newswires)