The French newspaperLe Monde announced today that it will stop posting its content on the X platform due to the “intensification of activism” of its owner, Elon Musk, and the “increasing toxicity of conversations” among users.

“We will also intensify our vigilance on many other platforms, notably TikTok and those of the Meta group, following the disturbing statements by Mark Zuckerberg,” who has made ideological overtures to Republican US President-elect Donald Trump, Le Monde’s director Jerome Fennoliot said in the paper’s editorial.

Musk, who bought the former Twitter in 2022, has transformed it “into an extension of his political action, of a libertarianism that is increasingly reaching out to the far right, an instrument of the pressure he wants to exert on his competitors or European social democratic governments,” he added.

“This mix of ideology and commerce was increasingly hiding Le Monde as well as most other traditional media outlets, he said, underlining that for more than a year, the newspaper’s posts on the platform had been limited “to the bare minimum.”

Henceforth, the posting of its content on the platform will be suspended as long as X “operates in this manner“. Fennolio recommends that its journalists do the same. He also expresses the hope that “the European Union will not capitulate to the definition of public debate, which is governed by rules, respects the participants, the information circulated and the opinions held.”

Several French media outlets (Ouest France, Sud Ouest, Mediapart, La Voix du Nord), as well as those in other countries (The Guardian, La Vanguardia), have already stopped posting their content on Platform X because of Trump’s return to the White House. Musk, a close associate and financial supporter of the Republican, is expected to be appointed as a minister in his administration.