Staff at France Soir - a once-great French newspaper that has been fighting to survive in recent years - demonstrated in Paris on Friday over job cuts planned by the paper's new owners.
About 50 France Soir employees rallied outside the culture ministry to ask the state to help overturn a court ruling handing control of the paper to a pair of entrepreneurs who intend to cut its staff in two.
Real estate developer Jean-Pierre Brunois and sports journalist Olivier Rey intend to keep on 51 of the paper's 112 employees and relaunch France Soir as a popular newspaper focused on sports, horse racing and showbusiness gossip.
Staff have been on strike since the court decision on Wednesday, and were occupying the paper's headquarters, which were due to be turned over to the new ownership Friday at midnight.