Sure but Le Monde, with all the veneer of real journalism (tm) that it supposedly has , is arguably even less neutral than the less respected mediapart. French

Sure but Le Monde, with all the veneer of real journalism (tm) that it supposedly has , is arguably even less neutral than the less respected mediapart. French society is extremely "dérigée" by the traditional vielle elite, much more so than the US for example. And it's not because they are conspiring to keep control or anything! It's mostly just due to how french society is structured. Power is very centralized and so are cultural institutions, in both cases around Paris. The education system is even more elitist, with the Grandes Écoles acting as a very selective gatekeeper. To the point where a career at Le Monde is probably a lot harder if impossible to sustain without having attended those schools. What does that all mean? Well you get a very incestuous relationship between state, industry and media and a media that is extremely "parisian". They all went went to the same school, know the same people, share networks, etc. Once they get in that very bourgeois clique, they become less trustworthy than even an opiniated source like Mediapart imo. [Especially since direct state interference in the media/culture (or in general) is much less of a taboo in France than in the anglosphere. ]