Mediapart published on Friday, January 30th an investigation into Olivier Legrain, a patron of several independent media outlets in France, shareholder in some of them, and main backer of the "House of Free Media" project. The article reports the existence of a complaint for sexual assault, multiple accounts from women describing persistent and overly familiar messages, as well as situations involving unequal power dynamics.
We express our full and complete support for the victims. We believe them and commend their willingness to speak out, particularly in contexts marked by significant power imbalances.
In summer 2025, a member of our team was in contact with Olivier Legrain in a strictly professional capacity, for two reasons: on the occasion of the publication of his book, whose themes resonated with the issues championed by Médianes, and in the context of seeking funding for our activities.
The tone and nature of certain messages we received surprised and alerted us. Several people from the ecosystem also warned us, due to this collaborator's situation — a woman, young, and in a position of power imbalance that was both financial and political. Without then having knowledge of the extent or severity of the facts now described, these elements led us to heightened vigilance.
Given these alerts and the situation we found ourselves in, as of summer 2025, we ceased all efforts to seek funding from Olivier Legrain, decided not to publish the planned interview, and distanced ourselves from the Free Media House project.
In November 2025, our team was interviewed as part of the investigation conducted by Mediapart. The exchanges that took place in this context allowed us to determine that the facts in question were not an isolated situation. It was at the publication of the investigation on Friday that we discovered the scale and nature of the facts attributed to Olivier Legrain. We also commend the rigorous and necessary work of Marine Turchi and Lénaïg Bredoux in conducting this investigation.
The independence of journalism is our reason for being. It is grounded in the values and causes that Médianes championed every day, in France as in Europe: defending free media, supporting independent newsrooms, and fighting, unequivocally, against sexual violence and harassment as well as against all forms of domination that undermine the safety and dignity of those affected and permanently weaken journalistic work.
The Médianes Team
