Trade unions
Many unions compete to represent and defend interests and rights of journalists and more globally the journalism profession. Interestingly most of them are linked or affiliated to politically-oriented global unions that act and contribute to the national politics: the SNJ-CGT (linked to the far left union CGT), the USJ-CFDT (tied to the center-moderate union CFDT), SGJ-FO (part of the left union FO), Sud Médias (linked to the leftist and anti-globalisation union Sud), Journalistes CFTC (affiliated to the Christian Social union CFTC) or SPEP (part of the managers and executives union CFE-CGC). But the Syndicat National des Journalistes (National Union of Journalists - SNJ) which is not formally tied to any political organisation is the first journalists’ union since 1946 according to professional elections. In addition another union plays a powerful role within the French press landscape: the Syndicat général du livre et de la communication écrite (General Union of books and written communication - SGLCE-CGT, also called the Livre CGT). This union of printing and circulation workers is strongly tied to communist ideas and organisations. It has the monopole in the printing firms for national daily newspapers and thus frequently blocks the printing or the delivering of print newspapers all over the country when it goes on strike.
Publishers also are represented through numerous unions that powerfully operate as lobbying actor towards government, Parliament and State bodies in order to preserve their business interests. These unions quite cover each sub-media market: the Syndicat des Editeurs de la Presse Magazine (Union of Press Magazine Publishers - SEPM) federates the publishers of the magazine press market that is extremely vibrant, the Syndicat de la Presse Quotidienne Nationale (Union of National Daily Print - SPQN) groups publishers of national dailies, the Union de la Presse en Région (Union of Regional Press - ex SPQR et SPQD) unifies publishers of regional dailies, the Syndicat de la Presse Hebdomadaire Régionale (Union of Weekly Regional Press - SPHR) operates for the regional weeklies newspapers, the Fédération Nationale de la Presse d'Information Spécialisée (National Federation of Specialised Information Press - FNPS) gathers seven other unions of specialist and trade press, the Syndicat de la presse indépendante d'information en ligne (Union of the Independent Online Information - SPIIL) dedicated to online press, etc.