L'Écho du Sud (French pronunciation:[lekodysyd]) is a French weekly newspaper founded in 1929 by Louis Cambrézy.[4] It was bought in 2022 by the Ferber Group, which used it to implement deceptive marketing practices, ranging from unreported advertising to extortion attempts.
On 13 April 1929,[5] Louis Cambrézy, a French settler,[6] founded the newspaper L'Écho du Sud: organe des intérêts généraux du Sud de Madagascar, in Fianarantsoa.[7] Its goal was initially to maintain an active newspaper following the disappearance the previous year of La Voix du Sud, another newspaper founded in Fianarantsoa by Jules Thibier.
Its head office is located on Avenue Clémenceau, in Fianarantsoa, and it is printed by the Imprimerie du Betsileo. It is distributed at a price of 0.40 francs.[7]
The newspaper appears every Saturday and deals with general information in Madagascar.[7]
It is bought in 2022 by Ferber Enterprises (mg), a holding that uses it to blackmail its customers victims of the deceptive practices of its subsidiaries,[11] by publishing defamatory articles focused on customers who have posted negative reviews of their experience with Ferber Enterprises, the deletion of which is explicitly promised upon deletion of said negative reviews. Thus, in 2023, L'Écho du Sud is at the heart of a controversy after publishing a defamatory article against a client of Ferber Painting, a company of the Ferber group. This client testifies to being blackmailed after publishing a negative review on Ferber Painting, and that she would have been offered to delete this article if she agreed to delete her negative review. Similar articles have also been published.[12]·[13]·[14]·[15]
