“For the past few months, France’s newspaper of reference and flagship of the world’s francophone press has been engaged in a crisis unheard of since it was founded after the liberation in 1944. The house of Colombani has been shaken by the publication of La face cachee du Monde (The Hidden Face of Le Monde), a 630-page ‘investigation into an institution above all suspicion’. The book has raised profound questions about the power the newspaper wields in France, and about the ethics and methods of those at its helm. The Hidden Face accuses Le Monde of everything from trafficking influence, running secret campaigns for favoured politicians and harassing businessmen for commercial gain to publishing anti-French propaganda, stifling internal debate and misrepresenting the group’s sales figures and financial results.”