It just seems in keeping with other European press organizations like Deutsche Welle, BBC, (or, ugh, RT) etc. that offer an internationally focused version of their brand which also happens to be in English... because most of the world speaks that.

(I very much enjoy Deutsche Welle's content, myself. But could be because I'm a bit of a Deutsch-o-phile on account of my father being a German immigrant to Canada)

That being said, I'm going to counter on the idea that _most_ Germans, Italians ... understand English.

It's certainly true that the _subset_ of Europeans targeted by Le Monde (affluent, educated, europhile, pro-business-yet-socialy-left-of-center) does.

So the move is less strange if you assume they're trying to compete with "The Guardian" or "The Economist".

I still wonder if they hope to compete with the New York Times or Washington Post.

Also, it's a bit disheartening that they decided to react to accusations like "you're too Parisians, you're out of touch with the real country, you're globalist who don't understand the troubles of real people" with such a "hold my overpriced wine, I'm going starting a world domination plan" move.

We already have a media concentration problem in France ; if all national papers start catering to the exact same globish audience, it will just make sense to stop having them altogether and just assume everyone will read the NYT, maybe with an adapted sport section (maybe not.)

Not good for local news.