Edouard de Rothschild, a millionaire banker who is the daily's biggest shareholder, brought the new investors in after clinching a deal to rescue the newspaper from bankruptcy by shaking up its structure and finances. Bernard-Henri Levy, a writer and philosopher given to wearing shirts open over his chest, is one of the more flamboyant names to be associated with Liberation.

His entry underlined the newspaper's ambition to provoke thought and social militancy by recalling its foundation in 1973 by a group of Maoists that included the late philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, about whom Levy once wrote a book. Levy was one of around 10 individuals who collectively spent 1.2 million euros (1.7 million dollars) to secure an eight-percent stake. But that outlay was easily overshadowed by the 33.3 percent bought by Carlo Caracciolo, an 81-year-old Italian press baron who founded the newspaper La Repubblica. Caracciolo's investment made him the second-biggest shareholder after Rothschild, who holds 38.7 percent.

- AFP, January 5, 2007