Le Monde journalists go on strike

The strikers oppose compulsory redundancies

Tuesday's edition of the prestigious French newspaper, Le Monde, will not be published after journalists walked off the job.

Unions are protesting against management plans to get rid of 130 jobs, most of them journalists.

"We don't think that the situation will improve if you get rid of the grey matter," said journalists' union leader Dominique Candille.

It is only the second strike in Le Monde's six-decade history.

Le Monde, founded in 1944, and its sister publications have been suffering from mounting losses and increasing debt.

In 2007, it lost 20m euros (£16m; $31m).

The Le Monde group also wants to sell off a number of publications with the loss of 170 more jobs - a move also opposed by the unions.

Union leaders are calling on the management to make the job cuts on a voluntary basis rather than push through compulsory redundancies, which would be the first since the paper was founded.

The paper, with a circulation of 320,000, was founded by campaigning journalist Hubert Beuve-Mery.