From: emcmanus@gr.osf.org (Eamonn McManus)
Subject: Gai Pied to cease publication
Organization: Open Software Foundation Research Institute, Grenoble
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 16:38:47 GMT

The French weekly gay magazine _Gai Pied_ will publish its last issue
on the 29th of October.  The reasons for its closure are apparently
mostly financial.  This will leave France without a
politically-oriented national gay publication.

I am including here a translation of the director's letter to his
staff, announcing the closure, as well as the editorial response.
These appeared in the issue of the 10th of September.  I have not
been following the progress of this affair, though I have no reason to
believe matters have changed.

Commentary in square brackets [] is mine.  My translation is a bit
literal, because I don't have the time to do a good job on this much
text.

I give the editorial response first, because it appears first in the
magazine (on the front page, in fact), and because it gives a shorter
summary of the background.

,
Eamonn

---
Editorial:
  
  On the 4th of September, Gerard Vappereau, director of this
  newspaper, announced [...] his decision to stop the publication of
  _Gai Pied_ after the 29th of October [...].  He also announced the
  laying off of almost all of the roughly sixty employees, keeping
  only the personnel necessary to keep the Minitel services in
  operation and maintain the minimal operation of the enterprise.
  This decision he says is motivated by principally financial
  imperatives, suddenly worsened by the following circumstances: the
  new design of _Gai Pied_, established last March, brought on a new
  loss in readership, accelerating an erosion in sales begun in 1985.
  Our telematic services [i.e., on Minitel -- a source occasionally of
  information but mostly of cruising], the business's principal
  revenue source, have since 1989 suffered more and more urgent
  threats of banning.

  This historic decision is surprising, grave, and dangerous.  It is
  surprising because the business has realised, as in previous years,
  sufficient income to maintain the title.  The economic motive is
  therefore not paramount.  All the more so since numerous contacts
  over the last few months with the public powers have led us to
  believe that they are clearly aware of the danger that the banning
  of these bulletin boards would represent for _Gai Pied_, and that
  they do not wish to take on such consequences.

  This decision is grave, because the cessation of _Gai Pied_ marks
  the end of a collective history whose echoes go far beyond the
  people who created and developed this journal, and even beyond its
  readers.  The existence of _Gai Pied_, its recognition as a speaker
  for and representative of a community by all the public powers, its
  international renown and, above all, the quality and diversity of
  its information, made all the more necessary in this period troubled
  by AIDS, are an experience [or experiment] unique in Europe for
  visibility and defence of gay rights.  Let us recall that no other
  gay publication project has been able to develop in the past few
  years, and that it will be difficult, whatever projects may come, to
  acquire at the same time the political impact of the _Gai Pied_
  title and the knowledge and experience of its editorial staff.

  Finally, this decision is dangerous because it arrives just at the
  moment when the proponents of moral order are applying more and more
  pressure, and before an election, in March 1993, whose results seem
  unlikely to be favourable to the maintenance of our freedoms of
  expression.  Will these battles have been already lost before being
  waged?  Will we have to scuttle the ship even before being given the
  alarm?  This decision is dangerous because it radically calls into
  question all communication about AIDS towards gay people, while this
  information is still not being passed on sufficiently by the public
  powers.  We don't doubt, either, that those powers will be comforted
  by the self-destruction of a homosexual medium which made visible
  the impact of AIDS on this community and the incompetence of the
  government responses.

  This decision is terribly ominous, because beyond the people
  involved in a conflict of interests strictly internal to the
  company, an irreversible blow is being dealt to the rights and the
  dignity of homosexuals, to their visibility in society.  More
  seriously, it negates the chances for a liberty of which we have
  only seen the beginnings.

---
The letter from the director (omitting large parts):  

					Paris, 3 September 1992

  I regret to inform you of the suspension from publication of _Gai
  Pied Hebdo_, after the appearance of issue 541 on the 29th of
  October 1992.

  This newspaper was born in 1978, a breakaway from the militant
  homosexual movement of the period, as a complete publication.  The
  project was conceived by a small group formed around Jean Lebitoux.
  I gave it a form that September, by creating _Les Editions du
  Triangle Rose SARL_ [Pink Triangle Publications Ltd] [...] and
  bringing out issue 0, 3000 copies of which were distributed free.

  The first issue appeared on the 1st of April 1979.  Despite the
  stated wish to function as a business, the lack of proper funds at
  the start generated a business culture of militancy tempered by
  economic pragmatism [unsure about the translation there], which
  allowed the development of the title and the business in an
  ascendant phase but which has become a brake in the last few years.

  The changeover to weekly publication, which I proposed in 1982,
  allowed the rectification of the financial situation which had
  degraded as a result of the establishment of payment for the
  contributors, up till then volunteers; this was essential to assure
  the continuance of the project.  In 1984 we created the first
  telematic network and we have remained one of the leaders in this
  sector [...].

  Since 1985, we have seen a continual reduction in sales of _Gai
  Pied_ of roughly 10% per annum, with a fall of 30% in September
  1987, when French versions of American titles appeared on sale.
  Despite all our efforts [...] we have been unable to reverse this
  trend or to maintain a level of sales sufficient for this
  publication to maintain an even precarious balance.

  [A redesign and change-over to tabloid format failed to win over the
  anticipated market share, and an anticipated monthly publication
  never appeared due to a lack of backers.]

  Nobody is to blame for this; on the contrary the evolution of
  homosexuals and of society's perception of homosexuality have
  greatly evolved [sic] over the last 13 years.  We have certainly
  played a part in this and can be proud of our accomplishments.
  There is surely a place for a newspaper aimed at homosexuals, but
  today it will have to be completely reinvented.

  If I resisted for several years the swallowing up of our telematic
  revenues in the production of _Gai Pied_ [...] they ended up by
  being absorbed.

  For the last year, the various battles that I have waged against the
  Ministry of Finance and against France Telecom have for the time
  being met with success, but I do not think that we will escape for
  much longer a significant, perhaps even total, reduction in our
  telematic income.  The disconnection of the service BOY [another gay
  cruising service, victim along with some straight services of
  committee manipulations by moral authoritarians] this Summer, can
  only confirm this.  The revenue from Minitel has given us more and
  more income for producing this newspaper [...].  At the same time,
  the fall in sales has diminished our independent resources.  Our
  auxiliary activities -- special issues, _Gai Pied Guide_, [...] --
  have not been sufficiently profitable, when they have not actually
  lost money.  Their development has often taken place in an anarchic
  way, without the support of, even in competition with, the rest of
  the business.

  [...]

  Even if it presents grave risks in the present circumstances, I
  think that the only solution is to call the whole thing to a halt,
  and to rebuild a new business whose primary objective would be to
  edit a newspaper for homosexuals, with the development of activities
  that would ensure its future.  [He then says he has every intention
  of being involved in such a thing, although absolutely refuses to
  direct it, reasonable in the circumstances.]

  Please believe that this decision has not been easy for me to make
  [...].

  Gerard Vappereau

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