The newspaper Le Monde presented an exceptional apology to its readers, as well as to the governor of the Bank of France, François Villeroy de Galhau, following the publication of an article on expense reports, reported the columnist Sylvie Kauffmann on X (ex-Twitter), Thursday. The article, titled “Luxury hotels and business class flights: the Banque de France governor’s expense reports in question,” was published on May 17. He claims that François Villeroy de Galhau has accumulated “more than 50,700 euros in expenses linked to his professional travel and meals for the year 2023 alone”. “A figure which is largely explained by the governor’s taste for luxury hotels and business class flights,” the article further indicates.
In a right of reply addressed to the newspaper and reproduced in full at the end of the article the day after its publication, François Villeroy de Galhau justified these expenses and denounced “a purely personal attack, and without any basis”. “Reading this text and the reaction of many readers have prompted the editorial management to re-examine in detail the elements of information which led to the production of this article,” added the editorial staff of the newspaper, in a published insert in the article in question.
“It appeared, in the light of these editorial discussions, that the expenses mentioned did not justify, in themselves, an article constructed from this angle”, continues the text, which refers to “an error”. “Le Monde nevertheless chose to retitle (“The expense reports of the governor of the Bank of France in question”, Editor’s note), but not to unpublish this article, already widely read and commented on: this would lead to the disappearance of the right to response, which offers a number of explanations to the questions raised,” he explains, before apologizing to readers and to François Villeroy de Galhau.