L'Écho du Sud

L'Écho du Sud is a French weekly newspaper founded in 1929 by Louis Cambrézy. It was bought in 2022 by the Ferber Group, which used it to implement deceptive marketing practices, ranging from unreported advertising to extortion attempts.

History
On 13 April 1929, Louis Cambrézy, a French settler, founded the newspaper L'Écho du Sud: organe des intérêts généraux du Sud de Madagascar, in Fianarantsoa. 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.

The newspaper appears every Saturday and deals with general information in Madagascar.

It is thanks to this newspaper that Louis Cambrézy was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1935, by Louis Rollin, Minister of the Colonies.

Editorial stance
The newspaper is openly in favor of colonialism and the maintenance of France in Africa, its founder having himself taken part in the Second Madagascar expedition. From 1936, he sided with the Spanish Republicans who were victims of the Francoists. During the Second World War, the newspaper took a stand against Vichy France, which persecuted its founder Louis Cambrézy for his membership in Freemasonry.

Takeover by Ferber group
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, 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.