In an intensifying drama over accusations of political corruption, a news Web site called Mediapart this week published its most incendiary article yet, accusing Mr. Sarkozy of receiving illegal donations from Liliane Bettencourt, the 87-year-old heiress to the L’Oréal fortune, during his 2007 election campaign.
Spokesmen for Mr. Sarkozy have issued vehement denials. On Thursday, they said that the source of the accusations, a former accountant to Ms. Bettencourt, had partly recanted in testimony to the police. Aides to Mr. Sarkozy have lashed out at Mediapart. Xavier Bertrand, the leader of his right-leaning political party, the Union for a Popular Movement, accused the site of “fascist methods” on French radio last week.
Mediapart, however, has stuck by its article, reveling in its ability to set the news agenda in France, where its reports for weeks have provided the grist for the front pages of the next day’s newspapers. It is one of several news and investigative journalism Web sites that are flourishing in France, even as the printed press sinks deeper into crisis.
“It’s a story that has really galvanized the public,” said François Bonnet, the Mediapart editor. “It has everything in it: a great personality and a famous family, and now it has become a state affair.”
While Mr. Sarkozy’s approval ratings had been steadily declining even before the scandal, the polemic has so far been a boon to Mediapart.
Founded two years ago by Edwy Plenel, a former editor of Le Monde, and other former print journalists, Mediapart has pursued a business strategy as iconoclastic as its approach to news. Unlike the majority of news sites on the Web, it charges readers for access. Over the last month, fueled by the newfound notoriety, subscriptions have surged by 20 percent, to 30,000.
“Two years ago, everyone looked at us as if we were crazy, saying news on the Web is free,” Mr. Bonnet said. “We did everything in reverse.”
While aides to Mr. Sarkozy have accused Mediapart of pursuing a partisan political agenda, doing legwork for the opposition Socialist Party as the 2012 election approaches, Mr. Bonnet said the site was simply trying to serve as a forum for independent, hard-hitting journalism.
French newspapers, he said, have largely ceded this role as they sink ever deeper into financial crisis. Most major French dailies lose money. Some depend on public subsidies for survival, while others have taken shelter in larger industrial companies.
The biggest daily, Le Figaro, is part of the business empire of Serge Dassault, a tycoon who is a friend of Mr. Sarkozy’s. Bernard Arnault, chief executive of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury conglomerate, owns the business daily Les Echos. Meanwhile, Le Monde, in a move to avert bankruptcy, recently moved to sell a controlling stake to a group of investors with connection to the Socialist Party.
One of the investors in Le Monde, Xavier Niel, a telecommunications entrepreneur, also has stakes in Mediapart and another news Web site, Bakchich.
Mr. Bonnet said the financial dependency of the French press had instilled a culture of caution, creating a journalistic void. First, that was filled by alternative publications like the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchainé, and now, by Web sites like Mediapart.
“The written press in France is in a terrible crisis,” he said. “It doesn’t take risks anymore in terms of journalism.”
Other news-focused Web sites have also sought to step into the void. In 2007, Pierre Haski, a former deputy editor of the newspaper Libération, set up the site Rue89 with other former journalists from that paper. Bakchich, meanwhile, was started in 2006 by a former reporter at Le Canard Enchainé.
These sites frequently scoop newspapers, television and other news media in France, similar to counterparts in the United States like Talking Points Memo. That distinguishes France from other European countries, where the mainstream media still break most of the big news stories. When a scandal over parliamentarians’ expenses rocked Britain last year, for instance, the reports appeared in a newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.
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