Rima Abdul Malak will take the group’s executive management on November 10, 2025 The East day. She will succeed Fouad Khoury Hélou, called to other functions after four years of piloting in a heckled Lebanese context. The announcement was formalized by the group’s publisher, the Société Générale de Press and Edition, and confirmed by The East day.
Born in Beirut in 1978 in a Lebanese family, Binational Franco-Lebanese, Rima Abdul Malak grew up in Lebanon until the age of ten before settling in Lyon in 1989. A graduate of Sciences Po Lyon and Paris-1 (DESS Development and Cooperation), she began in NGOs before directing, from 2001 to 2006, the programs of Clowns Sans Frontières. She then joined Culturesfrance (now French Institute) then the Paris town hall with Christophe Girard, where she became her chief of staff and, in 2012, Culture councilor of Mayor Bertrand Delanoë.
From 2014 to 2018, she was cultural attached to New York, in charge in particular of the dissemination of French -speaking creation. At the Élysée, from 2019 to 2022, she advised Emmanuel Macron on culture and the media, notably piloting the recovery plan during the COVID. Appointed Minister of Culture in May 2022, she left her duties in January 2024 disgraced by Emmanuel Macron.
She has been sitting since the International Committee of Aliph (International Alliance for Heritage Protection) and chairs the jury of the Jury of the Festival of Photographs Contact in Deauville.
Its Beirut anchor and its Franco-Lebanese socialization are articulated with the historic audiences of the daily life: Lebanese French-speaking and diaspora lectorates, in particular in France and in the Gulf. This double culture constitutes an asset to consolidate the basis of subscribers in Lebanon and activate international growth, in particular via multilingual editorial products and formats adapted to expatriate markets.
Born in 1971 of the merger of The East (1924) and The day (1934), The East day is the main French -speaking daily in Lebanon. Around the title, the group publishes The Literary Orient and has published, since 2020, The East TodaySister publication in English, 100 % digital. On the occasion of its editorial centenary (2024), the newspaper reaffirmed a positioning of editorial independence and a digital growth project, with a rejuvenated writing and a audience doped by the coverage of Lebanese and regional crises.
The group indicates finance its operations without partisan or public subsidies, via its commercial revenues. The arrival of an executive experienced in partnership montages and international strategies aims to accelerate diversification, while maintaining editorial standards which have earned the title, in particular, the great French-speaking medal and an Albert-London Prize for one of its journalists.
