Milica Čubrilo Filipović, the recent correspondent of “Figaroa”, talks to “Vreme” about her termination of work for the French newspaper due to critical reporting on the situation in Serbia. The owner of “Figaro” produces the Rafale that Serbia buys from France based on the agreement between Vučić and Macron
Milica Čubrilo Filipović, for many years stationery French “Figaroa” from Belgrade is no more, she confirms for “Vreme”.
She found out, she says, by accident, during a private visit to Paris and the newsroom. Then the deputy director told her that they would not be able to continue the cooperation.
He asked her, says Čubrilo Filipović, what her relations were like with the former French ambassador in Belgrade Frederik Mondolini.
Mondolini, who is currently the political director of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed to Dassault, the arms manufacturer and flurry and the owner of “Figaro”, according to the claims of its former director, that they have a correspondent in Belgrade who is “politically active”, that she was a minister and an ambassador, and that therefore cooperation is inadmissible.
Čubrilo Filipović says that she indicated to him that her biography was known to the newsroom since she returned to it in 2018.
She collaborated with “Figaro” from 2000 to 2003. After that, she was an ambassador and a minister, and her political career ended in 2014. Four years later, she returned to “Figaro” and from then until the end of last year there were no problems.
Political censorship
“They knew everything. It was never a problem and everything was fine, until it obviously became too problematic to write critically. I don’t write any more or less critically than other foreign media. There were several articles last year about students where we ‘hooked up’, where they reproached me for being too empathetic. For example, when the students went to Strasbourg by bicycle. They changed my article and wrote that they were activists who went to Strasbourg, expelled are all about the student movement.”
The deputy editor-in-chief with whom she met at the beginning of January this year did not tell her that her engagement was ending, but to wait a few months.
“The reasoning was that it was a problem for them because I cover the entire region, that they have no one else. All this was communicated to me orally on January 6. On the same day, I wrote an email to my first boss, the head of the World section. I wrote to him what I was told and that I was upset. He replied that he was very sorry, that it came out of the blue from the shareholders and owners and that he wished me the best, which clearly confirms that this is the end,” he says Čubrilo Filipović.
Cancellation or “major events”
However, when one of her colleagues contacted the newsroom regarding her dismissal, he was told that none of that was true, that the cooperation was not being terminated, but that Čubrilo Filipović would continue to cover “big events”. Which, it turns out, isn’t true.
Since the beginning of this year and her visit to Paris, she has not written a single article for “Figaro”, and soon she should meet with the people who deal with human resources in the editorial office, to discuss further steps.
Vučić, Macron and Rafale
Relations between Serbia and France have intensified in recent years.
In the spirit of that friendship, Serbia buys Rafal fighter jets from France, which are produced by the company that owns “Figaro”.
Čubrilo Filipović says that she has never written about the Rafale, but adds that in a conversation with colleagues from other newsrooms, she found out that things about writing about the relations between Serbia and France and the critical attitude about Serbian politics in the French media have changed a lot since the “friendship” of the two countries has improved, i.e. since the regime of Aleksandar Vučić opened the door wide for French companies.
Source: Vreme
