The French government wants to find a buyer for 60 millions de consommateurs magazinepublished by a public establishment since 1970, highlighting its difficulties, while employees and even former minister Olivia Grégoire deplore the decision. For former consumer affairs minister Olivia Grégoire, 60 millions de consommateurs is “the consumer information title”. which presents “the best guarantees of quality, neutrality and independence”..

The magazine has been published since 1970 by the Institut National de la Consommation (INC), a public establishment based in Malakoff, in the Hauts-de-Seine region of France, which employs around fifty people. While staff representatives have repeatedly warned in recent months of a deterioration in its financial health, the office of the French Secretary of State for Consumer Affairs, Laurence Garnier, announced on Monday that the State “wishes to engage” from “efforts to find a buyer for the magazine”.. The aim is to “provide the magazine with new resources and expertise, enabling it to attract new readers”.. No buyer has yet been identified.

“The long-term future of the title depends on a professional buyer with industry expertise, capable of investing in digital technology and driving forward a new marketing and sales strategy”.Mrs. Garnier’s office adds, noting that the magazine is encountering “for several years from “major difficulties”with the number of subscribers falling from 140,000 in 2019 to 76,000 in 2024, and “a persistent deficit over the past 7 years, which has depleted its cash position”.. Not an insignificant point, in a context of the State’s search for savings, “this change in the magazine’s status will also help optimize the use of public funds”.. A parliamentary report in 2022 already mentioned a “gradual reduction in subsidies”. to the INC between 2012 and 2020, from 6.3 million euros to 2.7 million euros.

Read also
Threatened with extinction, 60 millions de consommateurs magazine calls on the government to react

Concern and bitterness

For employee representatives, it’s the “stunned. At the beginning of November, they had called on Prime Minister Michel Barnier to continue along the path chosen by the government headed by Gabriel Attal, that of a “INC rebound scenario”. via a “3.2 million euros in state funding”.. Monday’s announcement “is disastrous because it will significantly weaken independent expert information serving consumers, leaving more room for sponsored monologues from influencers and fake news about consumer issues.”the employee representatives are concerned, regretting that “public interest is rarely financially profitable”..

“Will the first Secretary of State dedicated exclusively to consumer affairs sound the death knell for the Institut national de la consommation? What will 60 Millions de Consommateurs become without engineers, lawyers, economists… All the professionals who have worked for the magazine for so long? What will become of the INC without its main medium?”ask the staff representatives, asking “that the Olivia Grégoire plan be maintained and applied.. In a statement, the latter declared: “I bitterly regret that the arbitration I was able to obtain”. in favor of relaunching the title through state investment “has not been maintained”.. She addressed her “thoughts” “to INC employees, and to the consumers they have always endeavored to inform to the best of their ability”..

The INC was created in 1966 and is responsible for ensuring that consumers are properly informed, and for “promote responsible consumption. It includes a center for comparative testing of products and services, as well as a legal and economic studies department,” it explains on its website. At the beginning of November, its employees warned that without urgent help from the State, the INC risked not making it through the financial crisis. “the year 2025.