Just before the 10 am conference at Le Figaro , Sunday April 26, 2020. Outside, big sun. In the newspaper, dreary plain. Almost not a cat. The open space on the second floor, that of the Web and "hot" services (political, international, society, economy) is completely deserted, confinement requires, with the exception of a few single-person islands, very concentrated, which are activated in front of screens.
Given the surface area, human density must fluctuate between 100 and 150 square meters per person. Heaven in Paris. A joke in a newsroom.
Read also: Le Figaro and its confined writing: a small daily miracle
The main committee in the morning meets as usual: at 10 am Around the table, which measures a good fifteen meters, six journalists are seated at a good distance, at least two meters, without mask that morning. At the end of the Paul-Henri du Limbert room, a giant screen has appeared since the confinement to involve part of the videoconference teams. The head of computer graphics, the editor-in-chief of politics and then that of the photo, the assistant director of editorial editing… all the microphones are open. Diving into Monday's newspaper.
A. Guilloteau / Le Figaro
Contents: deconfinement. In France, in Spain… The intervention of the Prime Minister on the subject Tuesday, Israel, the state of health of Kim Jong-un (which, him, could not be linked to Covid-19…), the portrait of Jean Castex, the man of deconfinement.
Coronavirus in action
"Do you have figures?" Asks Alexis Brézet, managing editor. Except corona, what do we have? ” A sports page, on tennis player Nadal, which offers a new kind of tournament. "We have to do Kim, it will change us." Review of the 38 pages dated April 27.
10:20 am: "The CNIL says that you have to be very careful on StopCovid." 10:22 am: "Cryptography researchers issue criticisms," soberly indicates Soline Roy, of the science and medicine department. "There is a risk of reconfiguration," she continues. At this point, we start on the prerequisites for deconfinement. Where it is a question of triple treatment, vaccines, strategy, antihypertensives ... It is not 10:30.
Thierry Portes, of the international service, evokes the return of Boris Johnson, recovered from the Covid, at 10 Downing Street. We think of him for the illustration of Une. Another photo may well be the coronavirus in action. "The red dots, it's the virus that replicates," explains Soline Roy, who gets up and comes to tend in front of the central camera the photo downloaded in his smartphone so that the five or six people in videoconference see what "the beast Looks.
10.35 am: as if by magic, the paper journal railway appears on the screen. We advise, we adjust. At 10:40 a.m., it was the economy's turn to plan to deal with the deconfinement puzzle for businesses. "Flea paper, we're going to teach," says the chef of the salmon notebook. The meeting ends with the question of the day which will be posted on the site: "At the time of deconfinement, would you be ready to wear a mask in public space?"
