After 47 years, the philosopher Fernando Savater was fired from “El País” for his criticism of the newspaper

The writer and philosopher Fernando Savater He was fired from El Paísfrom Spain, a newspaper he helped found and where he held the role columnist for 47 yearsfor his criticism of the editorial line formulated in a forthcoming book.

His dismissal is a direct consequence of the harsh criticism directed at the newspaper and his stance towards the management of Pedro Sánchez, which he reflects on in his next work entitled “Carne governoda”.

In a recent interview, Savater identified the outlet for having become “spokesman of the worst government that Spanish democracy has had since the death of dictator Francisco Franco” and welcome an “unfortunate female invasion.”

The author of “Ethics for Amador” began writing in the first issue of El País, and was linked to this medium for almost half a century. For a few years he has been publishing a column every Saturday.

“(El País) has an exaggerated government line. It is an artifact that serves the government, the separatists and the left. I wrote against this and, on many occasions, my article was the one that the rest of the newspaper denied. This Maybe it was scary,” Cope said in conversation with Spanish radio.

There, he said that it was the current director of the newspaper, María José “Pepa” Bueno, who informed him of his dismissal, days after an interview with El Mundo, in which he questioned the management of the medium where he had worked for almost half a year. century.

“It has changed a lot: from a critical and plural newspaper… to an openly governmental means of communication,” he observed in that interview with journalist Maite Rico.

The criticisms expressed in the interview are nothing more than a condensed version of the questions contained in his book “Governed Flesh”, which the Ariel label publishes this Tuesday in Spanish territory.

“From a progressive center-left newspaper, with its strengths and weaknesses, it became the spokesperson for the government and for the worst government that Spanish democracy has had since the death of the dictator (Francisco Franco). Naturally it undermined the prestige of the newspaper, which went from being a newspaper of reference to becoming the ridiculous epitome of the press in the service of politics”, Savater develops in his work.

In 2023, Savater, together with other groups of intellectuals, questioned the Spanish government against Pedro Sánchez’s amnesty for the Catalan independence movement.

Savater and director Iñaki Arteta, among others, signed a manifesto opposing the amnesty and calling for a repeat election.

“The announced amnesty does not have the democratic legitimacy necessary for a decision of this importance, even if it were approved by a narrow absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies”, reads the manifesto. The PSOE did not include this measure in its electoral program which now, months later, it wants to present publicly as essential to improve coexistence in Catalonia”, we read in the text.

Grouped in the civic platform Consensus and Regeneration, its members – writers, journalists, jurists, entrepreneurs and former leaders of the PSOE and Ciudadanos, among others – instead called for “an electoral repetition in which the parties present their position regarding to the amnesty is clear so that citizens can vote well informed”.