Draft:Le360

Le360 is a Moroccan online news outlet founded in 2013, which publishes in Arabic and French.

Following its initial establishment, in 2014 it partnered with the Arabic-language weekly Al Aan, which ceased its activities in November of the same year due to a lack of readership. Le360 is a subsidiary of the Edit Holding company, which is co-owned at over 80% by Aicha Bouayad, and 20% by Aziz Daki, a confidant of Mounir Majidi, the private secretary of King Mohammed VI.

Editorial line
According to journalists Serge Michel and Youssef Ait Akdim, writing for Le Monde, Le360 was considered close to the Moroccan establishment (Makhzen), which regularly attacked critical journalists via sexual harassement. Vincent Coquaz of Libération added that Mounir Majidi was the "real boss" behind the website. Rosa Moussaoui, a senior reporter for L'Humanité, wrote that Le360 had the function "to disseminate propaganda in favour of Mohammed VI and the Moroccan services". Spanish columnist Ignacio Cembrero, writing for El Confidencial, also described Le360 as a "semi-official" news outlet.

In September 2023, Le360 published an article entitled "Who is [French president] Emmanuel Macron really?", which criticised his private life and confidants, referring to him as a "shameful homosexual" engaging in an extramarital affair. In another article, Macron's relations with Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune is described as a "sadomasochistic couple". Mohammed VI is, by contrast, praised as a "man of action, a tireless worker disinclined to words and remarks that do not materialize in performative acts".

Reception
Le360 was named by Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists as forming part of the "defamation press" in Morocco, which seeks to discredit critics of key Makhzen figures.

In 2016, activist Maati Monjib filed a lawsuit against Le360 in Paris, accusing the media outlet of "defamation and false statements, following several articles denigrating the person concerned and members of his family published on the said site during the last months and weeks". A similar lawsuit for defamation was filed by author Zakaria Moumni at the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris in 2015.