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L'Orient-Le Jour

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L'Orient Le Jour
L'Orient-Le Jour (January 30, 2017)
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Former minister Michel Eddé and his grandchildren (38%), the Choueiri group (22.7%) and the family of the former minister Michel Pharaon (15.49%). Libano-Suisse Insurance Consulting has 0.2 percent. (and others)
Founded15 June 1971; 53 years ago (1971-06-15)
Political alignmentLiberalism
LanguageFrench
HeadquartersBeirut
Websitewww.lorientlejour.com Edit this at Wikidata

L'Orient-Le Jour (English: The Orient-The Day) is a French-language daily newspaper in Lebanon. Its English-language edition is L'Orient Today.[1]

History

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L'Orient-Le Jour was first published on 15 June 1971, following the merger of two French-language Lebanese dailies, L'Orient (founded in Beirut in 1924 by Gabriel Khabbaz and Georges Naccache) and Le Jour (founded in 1934 by Michel Chiha).[2]

Between 1970 and 1975, one of the contributors was Samir Frangieh.[3] During the Lebanese Civil War, the paper was closed down by the occupying Syrian Army for a brief period in 1976,[4] before publication was resumed. The editor-in-chief of L'Orient-Le Jour, Eduard Saab, was murdered on 16 May 1976.[5]

The paper won the Grand Prix de la Francophonie from the Académie Française in 2021. L'Orient-Le Jour journalist Caroline Hayek was awarded the Albert Londres Prize for her coverage of the 2020 explosion at the Port of Beirut .[6]

The paper covers politics, local and international news, finance and economics, culture, entertainment as well as sports.[7] According to the Arab Press Network, an offshoot of WAN-IFRA, it is the most widely read Francophone daily newspaper in Lebanon and is "partisan to a liberal, Christian leaning line."[8][9]

Editorial stance

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L'Orient-Le Jour takes a fierce line against Hezbollah, and also against elite corruption in Lebanon. It was one of the few Arab news outlets to say that the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel was an unjustifiable massacre. Topics that are still taboo in Lebanon, such as homosexuality, domestic violence, suicide and abortion, regularly appear in its columns.[6]

Ownership

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The main shareholders of L'Orient-Le Jour are former minister Michel Eddé and his grandchildren (38%), the Choueiri group (22.7%) and the family of the former minister Michel Pharaon (15.5%). The latter's shares are distributed as follows: Pharaon directly holds 2.6% of the shares, his sister, Nayla De Freige, holds 1.7%, the Pharaon Holding SAL has 11% and Libano-Suisse Insurance Consulting has 0.2%.[10] Not all shareholders have been made public, which represent 23.8% of the ownership.[10]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "L'Orient Today: Contact Information, Journalists, and Overview". Muck Rack. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  2. ^ (in French) L'Orient-Le Jour About Us, Lorient Le Jour
  3. ^ Who's Who in Lebanon (19th ed.). Beirut: Publitec Publications. 2007. p. 132. doi:10.1515/9783110945904.476. ISBN 978-3-598-07734-0.
  4. ^ "Syria/Lebanon: Summary", Human Rights Watch
  5. ^ "Chronology April 16, 1976-August 15, 1976". The Middle East Journal. 30 (4): 529. Autumn 1976. JSTOR 4325541.
  6. ^ a b Hélène Sallon (22 March 2024). "'L'Orient-Le Jour', Lebanon's dashing 100-year-old daily". Le Monde. Archived from the original on 24 May 2024.
  7. ^ "Clients". KnowledgeView. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
  8. ^ Fletcher, Lily (16 October 2018). "Antoine Sfeir: French-Lebanese scholar and writer who critiqued political Islam". The Independent. Retrieved 24 May 2024. Sfeir began his career as a journalist in 1968 at Lebanon's most widely read Francophone daily newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour, which was established in 1971 and "partisan to a liberal, Christian leaning line," according to the Arab Press Network.
  9. ^ "L'Orient le Jour" Archived 10 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Arab Press Network. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
  10. ^ a b "L'Orient-Le Jour". lebanon.mom-rsf.org. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
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