The editor of El País explains Fernando Savater’s dismissal to readers: “It was clear that he was not happy with the newspaper.”

“Thank you very much for the path undertaken so far, good luck and see you always”, concludes the note from the director of the Spanish newspaper VillagePepa Bueno, made him reach the philosopher and writer Fernando Savater to confirm what he had anticipated on the phone: that of the newspaper He will no longer publish his weekly column and will be banned from El País due to his criticism of the publication.

This Friday, at a newsletter aimed at newspaper readersBueno clarifies why there will not be an article by Savater on Saturday, a pen that has been read in El País for almost fifty years: “For a long time it was evident that our author was not satisfied with the papersomething we knew from his columns and his public statements – explains Bueno -. He never came home to comment on it.”.

“He expressed this to two external media outlets on Monday intolerable terms of personal contempt towards El País, its credibility, its management, its journalists and its collaborators. This was clear to me It was the end of the trip”, adds the director in her message.

Savater gave interviews to the newspaper El Mundo and the online newspaper El Confidencial as part of the promotion of his latest book, Carne governoda, in which he collects his intellectual memoirs and which is in bookstores from Wednesday 24 January.

«From a progressive, centre-left newspaper, with its strengths and weaknesses, it has become one a government spokesperson and the worst government that Spanish democracy has had since the death of the dictator,” says Savater in El País on page 129 of Carne governoda.

«This naturally undermined the prestige of the newspaper, which went from a reference newspaper to a reference newspaper ridiculous epitome of the press at the service of politics”, he underlines later.

These opinions were confirmed and explored in depth in the interviews given by the philosopher.

The editor of El País called him on Monday to inform him that he had been fired.

“I know there were reasons why I was fired, I know. But I didn’t think it would happen. “I always hoped there would be a turning point,” Savater told El Confidencial.

“We talked a little in a friendly tone,” clarified the philosopher about his conversation with Pepa Bueno.

“There are 50 years of my life that I leave behind. But you have to start from the assumption that as you get older you constantly close doors, and this is a door that closes,” she said.

Clarion He tried to contact the management of El País but received no response.

Ideas that have generated controversy

This Friday Pepa Bueno titled her newsletter to El País readers on the topic. Over there gave the reasons which is why he decided to fire Savater: «All this time the newspaper has punctually published his opinions on the most diverse topics, accompanying the evolution of the philosopher’s thought and also of his style», says Bueno. Even when his ideas aroused great controversy with many of you and with our own journalists, as, for example, that time trivialized with abuse within the Church”.

And he assures: “I defended him, until last Monday, because I’m worried a society that is losing tolerance for discrepancy, including what causes us pain or rejection. It is not necessary to discuss the plurality of opinions of El País, just read us.”

“AND an important gap because Savater has been publishing on our pages for more than four decades, and has been one of the builders of the civic conscience of a couple of generations of Spaniards. Mine too”, confesses the director of El País.

“The opinion columns They are not spaces rented for life. in a newspaper – says Bueno -. They are a living space through which collaborators come and go over time.”

and announced it the Argentinian Leila Guerriero, Already a contributor to El País, she will begin publishing her column on Saturdays.