The Factory has a budget.
Though no longer a union official on "active service", I'm posting a quickie for AFP staff members in far-flung parts of the world who haven't had time of late to keep an eye on the internal notes and service wires, especially DIR.
Our current great leader, Bertrand Eveno, came down to the editorial floor at the start of the evening after a Board of Governors' meeting to take the microphone with a brief account of proceedings as he saw them. Obviously, the terms of our employment contracts don't allow me to blog details of the numerous figures Eveno provided and the spin he put on them.
Let's just say there wasn't exactly a stirring round of applause for the French media barons and government afterwards.
But if you want to know where the chairman and managing director, and the trade unions, think we're headed, I'd recommend paying a little more attention than usual to those internal wires over the next three or four days.
Unions also have, don't forget, their sites on AFP's intranet. And this being France, there seem to be even more of them to choose from, after the fuss that surrounded last year's union elections and what happened while I was away last year, when the CGT (Fr. main site) branches in the Factory, er ... blew up. That's the only term I can think after one batch of them dubbed the others "Stalinist" and various other happy labels from the past.
The SNJ (main Fr. site, but David -- Sharp Words -- is also busier than ever), is still largely in one piece and remains by far the biggest journalists' union in France, active as ever in the Factory.
Finally, if you want French press reports of what's going on, don't forget that the media or economy pages of Libé, Le Figaro, Le Monde and sometimes L'Humanité tend to have something to say when such rites of passage occur in the Factory's career.
9:42:59 PM link 
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