When it comes to refugees, we speak about data, statistics, immigration, even terrorism, but never about humans. Medias are one of the major responsible of this phenomenon.

The best way to turn things around was to use one of these medias in an unexpected way to catch people’s attention and switch their perception on this issue.

On March 7th we decided to give them the whole paper for 1 day. An entire Liberation issue was written by 21 refugees from an array of origins with one challenge: explain beyond today’s news how they see France. A paper by the refugees but not on refugees.

During 1 month, a team of 21 refugees from 10 origins was created with the help of 5 associations helping refugees.

The following month, this team was split within different groups of work (representing the themes of the newspaper such as presidential elections, international, economy, sports, culture, ideas, society …) to find current topics and write their articles.

3 of them even interviewed the French President François Hollande at the Elysee Palace, and the main candidate Emmanuel Macron.

On March 6th, the whole team came to Liberation to write on fresh news and finalized every single page of the newspaper.

The day after 100k papers are printed. It was distributed all over France in kiosks, press shops, bars, AF planes, to the 30K subscribers, and in more than 25 countries. A digital version sold online is seen by 4M French people every day.

- 21 refugees of 10 nationalities

- +35% of sales on this specific edition compared to usual days.

- 100k papers were printed and the digital edition was seen 4 million times

- Almost every major French medias (TV, Radio, Press) covered the news and interviewed authors

- International media supported the initiative

- The French President François Hollande tweeted and posted about it

- 3 refugees were invited to meet him at Elysee

- On Twitter #LibéDesRéfugiés was seen by 153 million people within the first 24 hours

This campaign highlights one of the most burning and controversial issue of Europe today. Therefore, immigration is a recurring theme in media and French people tend to close their eyes on it because they don’t feel directly involved.

The objective of this operation was to treat this national issue in another way, with a new sight and point of view: theirs. By publishing their convictions and knowledge on French society, this special edition highlights the human and not the figures. With a rise of 35% of sales this day, the audience answered the call.

Liberation is one of the major daily newspaper in France. It’s a progressive paper with a social democrat position founded by Jean Paul Sartre & Serge July in 1973. The paper stands for social issues with a provocative tone of voice and is renowned for using eloquent front covers. Several of them have become very symbolic. One of its main concern is to keep the press ‘freedom of speech” and the journalistic independence.

When it comes to refugees, we speak about data, statistics, immigration, even terrorism, but never about humans. Medias are one of the major responsible of this perception.

So the strongest way to reverse this trend was to give them the whole paper for 1 day to highlight that beyond figures, they have opinions and knowledges. They had the stage directly for a change.

As a progressive media, Liberation was the perfect candidate to support the refugee issue.

• Situation

In 2017, Europe is concerned by a major immigration crisis, and when it comes to refugees, people and especially medias speak about data, about statistics, about immigration waves, even about terrorism, but never about humans. They are not considered as men and women anymore, they are refugees.

• Brief

How Liberation, as a progressive media, becomes the catalyst of a societal change about refugees issue in Europe, 50 days before French presidential elections?

• Objectives

To switch people perception and give the refugees their own identity back the best solution was to let them speak on their behalf. By giving the whole paper for 1 day we wanted to highlight that beyond figures, they are people with opinions and knowledges. So they had the stage directly for a change.

-Budget 

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