Nice Premium: Jean-Marie Tarragoni, how would you define Le Standard?
Jean-Marie Tarragoni: Defining Le Standard? I leave that to others to decide. There are those who will say it’s a Left-wing newspaper, others will call it anarchist… I’ve even heard it said one day that it was a newspaper of the National Front! It is often described as the Canard Enchaîné of the Côte. There were those who claimed at one time (during the Médecin years) that it was a newspaper close to the “Powers that be”… without really knowing which power it was truly about. I tend to say it’s a newspaper by journalists. It has temperament. I believe I have it too; hence it shows. I am a man from the South. My journalists are too. Thus, there is verve and commitment. So, for Le Standard, I want it to be cheeky, funny, free, and disturbing.
NP: You hunt corruption, are you some kind of Eliot Ness from Nice?
JMT: Eliott Ness! He’s a purist. I don’t claim that stature. Some of your peers have rather compared me to Corto Maltese. There are more shades and contradictions in Hugo Pratt’s character. That suits me better. I’m not a saint: my first job was as a soldier. I’ve retained a taste for action and especially the desire to fight. I’ve just changed causes, that’s all. Corruption in this region is recurrent. I’m well acquainted with its many faces. In the early ’80s, I was 19 years old. My father died in a cell at the Gioffredo police station. The number of injuries he had (including a 17 cm skull fracture!) proves that he suffered terribly. He had presented himself alone a few hours earlier at the Saint Roch emergency services. No doctor saw him. A fake certificate was issued on headed paper by a doctor who was not present. And at the end of the judicial inquiry, no one was guilty. No one was prosecuted. There was never any conviction. My father, who was “nobody,” died in a holding cell without understanding why he was there; while he had come seeking help at a hospital. I was a paratrooper in Chad at the time. I could do nothing. Too many institutions were involved. And not a word in the Press. A few years later, I became a civilian and a journalist in my city with the urge to investigate and understand the environment we were in. I was duly served.
NP: How do you judge the local press and the various Azuréen news media?
JMT: To judge today’s Media, we need to go back to the context of the years 1988 to 1995 when Le Standard was published.
Le Standard greatly disturbed during the Médecin years. It was also the only written Media that gave voice to everyone without belonging to any party. There were (and still are!) the Patriote, a communist newspaper, whose leaders allowed, we too often forget, to maintain a rotary press in the Department. This often helped young publications trying to break the press monopoly of Nice-matin. We must give them this honor… Without them, freedom of expression was nonexistent.
Le Standard challenged the system quite effectively. It faced many lawsuits during those years. One day I was summoned by a local politician, civil party against me, before the Nice criminal court, and the president who judged was employed in an academic activity…by the civil party! Not a local media mentioned the scandal that represented. Another time I was summoned before a jurisdiction: the judge who judged me was otherwise in a lawsuit against me. A judgment condemned me… it was signed by magistrates who had never presided at the debates! Not the slightest gesture of sympathy from the “colleagues.” Another time I had the visit of police officers at the request of a magistrate from the public prosecutor’s office following a complaint from a judge for a supposed affair which turned out to be a setup. The police officer was sentenced to prison in another case. The magistrate was involved in a resounding scandal and condemned. And the judge who had requested prosecutions against me was jailed in a case three years later! (I was apologized to, at least). It was a “commissioned job,” just as others had “contracts.” On the media side, it wasn’t much better. Some journalists were in the system, paid by their media, a radio notably. They wrote against me articles on demand or even in books. Who still remembers in today’s newsrooms what was happening in a certain news agency at the time? Not a dispatch would leave Nice on the cases involving the City Hall. An agency whose director had set up advertising companies with the lieutenant of Jacques Médecin. He supervised Jean-Dominique Fratoni’s escape, the former boss of the Casino Ruhl who had fled to the Caribbean, from the offices of this news agency. He was afraid his phone in city hall might be bugged. It was the time when we had to call in policemen from Paris and displace the cases to see clearly. It was the time when Nice journalists were listed in the computers of a Right-wing political party. (I had two pages to myself). Or Jean-Claude Honorat, a reporter at FR3 had to sleep with a weapon under his pillow because he was threatened for daring to talk about the “affairs” on air. It was the time when corruption had reached such a “sophistication” that the policemen, magistrates, civil servants, journalists, politicians, elites in general who had strayed met in the Var plain and “exchanged” information forgetting for some their honor and for others their mission. We had to wait for Canard Enchaîné, Le Monde, Actuel, Événement du jeudi to pick up Le Standard for “things to move.”
Today, the context in Nice is different. There is no more system in Nice. So, there is a real difference. Nice-Matin for example opens up to society and no longer practices the policy of the iron curtain. It’s true that it is now led by a journalist (that makes a difference!). The daily even announced the rebirth of Le Standard. And discusses problems with its employees during internal conflicts. Unthinkable in the ’90s. France 3 is no longer the “prefect’s TV” of the ’80s. But asking for investigative files from journalists who have a minute and thirty seconds of airtime per topic is illusory. And the public service journalists are the first to be frustrated. The former free radios have allowed young journalists, who are today executives in audio Press, to adopt an irreverent tone on their airwaves. The internet multiplies the media windows and reveals real creative talents. There are still “servile” journalists, but they are few and they are rarely the best.
In the long run, there will be radical changes locally, the free medium which does not mean poor, coupled with the internet is the future of this profession. The internet will disrupt everything because the vector is evolving at a very high speed and requires less means than print or television media. But there will still be the barrier of money. And for local journalists, generalist training is essential. Local journalists must free themselves from the internet to go to the sources, a search engine is not a guarantee. On the other hand, the internet offers equality of opportunities between local newsrooms of different sensitivities, “rich” or “poor.”
NP: What are Le Standard and JM Tarragoni’s projects in the coming months?
JMT: The projects of Le Standard are primarily editorial. Starting a newspaper can only be done with money, of course, but especially with substance. I can’t do what our peers from more economical local weeklies or “local media” do. It is a form of journalism that has its letters of nobility but does not interest me. Investigation is not just about “affairs,” but also societal issues: housing, environment, economy. There is material to talk about and the weekly rhythm lends itself to in-depth articles. Then, there are commercial aspects. Everyone has noticed that we have little to no advertising. It’s a choice. I wanted to avoid pressures on advertisers from the first issues. Despite that, we had to cancel an advertising campaign that was supposed to take place in March. The advertiser did not want to irritate the city of Nice. The electoral calendar serves us, and we will “surf” on it. Four major elections in one year, that’s “unprecedented!” As soon as we deem that we have reached a probative level of quality, we will ask to be distributed like Métro in public spaces on a free weekly basis. That would be a first in France. We have written to the coastal municipalities and one has already said yes. We will then install “racks” for distribution. Maybe in the near future in Nice, tramway users will find Le Standard at the stations?
NP: The Presidential election is fast approaching. What do you think of the candidates in contention?
The presidential election is the event that sets the tone for public life in France. The French generally ignore this, but their so criticized leaders are actually better trained for this mission than their foreign counterparts. Probably because the “professionalization” of politics makes them last longer than is reasonable in our country. The accumulation of mandates over time helps in this, although it is pernicious otherwise. The main current candidates, who no longer want to be hostages of their respective political families, deliver schizophrenic speeches. And we can see that as soon as they try to free themselves from the frameworks (one could say straitjackets) established by the parties they come from, it cracks. But they are from another generation. They have not experienced War. They are even inexperienced compared to defense issues, as seen with the submarine question and Ségolène Royal. Or impressed by American imperialism in foreign policy, as Nicolas Sarkozy was before he remembered that France was singular in this area. François Bayrou is a real curiosity because he built himself against the dominant media and not with them. But he is not very talkative about post-election, and in the coming days this will be his main handicap. Jean-Marie Le Pen is already preparing for post-presidential and dreams of tripping up the UMP in the legislative elections. As for the others, we remain admiring the intact combativeness after six presidential campaigns of an Arlette Laguiller or pleasantly surprised by the quiet assurance of a Besancenot: they would almost make us forget that they still advocate revolution rather than the evolution of Society. José Bové, De Villiers, Dupont Aignan, and even Marie-Georges Buffet all share the commonality of holding convictions that will remain minority as long as the electoral systems do not evolve. Paradoxically, if Bayrou passes and establishes, as he promises, proportional representation in the legislative, these personalities and the movements they embody will be better respected by the major parties. The scenario that may occur in 2007 might be what François Mitterrand had planned in 1988 during a discussion with Raymond Barre after the presidential election. He had wished to turn his back on the common program of the Left and steer France towards a Social-Democratic society to solidly anchor it to Europe. Twenty years later… That’s generally how long it takes in France for an idea to become concrete. But I am not a fortune teller and do not know in what order this will come out.
NP: Just after that will be the turn of the legislative and municipal elections. Will Le Standard be involved in these elections?
JMT: Le Standard is already involved in the elections that are announced throughout the Department. We have made our position clear from our first issues. The city of Nice deserves to finally be pulled out of the mediocrity into which it is being pushed. But, and this is a Niçois speaking, it is primarily the business of the inhabitants of this city. Our message will be clear: choose whoever you want on the right or left, (or elsewhere!) but be demanding. We will keep watch on our part. We will also have a permanent message: we wish for the elected officials in municipal councils in particular, to remember that they are elected by the people and not just supporters of a man or a formation. And there, there is still work to be done. When we see the number of yes-men who follow without daring to speak publicly to denounce this or that deviation while privately they tell us everything and are moved by it (otherwise how would we make this journal?) we realize that it’s not won yet.
NP: Finally, your biggest wish for 2007?
JMT: My biggest wish for 2007? To hear the current mayor of Nice say “I resign if Tarragoni stops publishing Le Standard”. But the genie is already back in its lamp.
