In its 75-year history, Le Journal du Dimanche, France’s leading Sunday newspaper, has almost never missed publication. But its operations ground to a halt this week after an editor with a far-right track record was abruptly appointed just ahead of a takeover of the paper by the French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, prompting a mass walkout by journalists and igniting a firestorm in French media and political circles.Mr. Bolloré, an industrialist often described as France’s Rupert Murdoch, has been steadily building a conservative media empire, anchored by a Fox-style news network, CNews. The appointment of the editor, Geoffroy Lejeune, who was formerly at a far-right magazine that was fined for racist insults, raised concerns that one of France’s most prominent newspapers could be transformed into a right-wing pla …
