Yet again, we hear tidings that former Mirror-boss, David Montgomery, continues his march across Euorpe. This time the tidings come from France, where his investment vehicle, Mecom, apparently is embroiled in a bidding war with the French Hersant Media Group (GHM) for a number of French regional papers owned by the Le Monde- and Lagardere groups.

I first saw this story surface in Le Figaro on Monday. The paper reported that Mecom was raising its bid while GHM remained confident that the French group had successfully negotiated a deal that would land the regional papers on its hands.

A Mecom source then told us that the British bid probably wouldn't go through and the regional papers would, most likely, remain on French hands, but today Hemscott had a story about a union source who said that Mecom's bid is better than GHM's.

I'm sure Mecom would love to add France to its expanding newspaper empire, but guess we have to trust them when they say their bid is unlikely to succeed.

More tidbits here and here (in French).