Corrections and clarifications

The principle

A newspaper that never corrects itself lies twice. AubeActu corrects its mistakes, and corrects them visibly: a silent correction is one more mistake.

Telling us about an error

Every article carries a "Report an error" link. You can also write to contact@aubeactu.fr, giving the article's address, the passage concerned and, if possible, the evidence that establishes the error. Every report gets an answer, including when we do not change the article — with our reasons.

Reporting an error is not the same as exercising a right of reply, an enforceable right open to anyone named or identified in an article, nor the same as a removal or anonymisation request. All three routes exist side by side; take the one that fits your situation.

Our turnaround

• Obvious factual error — a name, a figure, a date, a place: corrected within hours of verification.
• Disputed error: examined within forty-eight working hours; the article carries a notice of ongoing review where the doubt is serious.
• Error concerning an accusation against a person: treated as an absolute priority, with the publication director.

What happens to the article

A correction adds a dated note at the foot of the article — never a discreet one — stating what changed and why. The format we use: "Updated on 4 September 2026 at 18:12: the number of injured has been corrected from three to two, after confirmation by the Aube fire and rescue service."

The article's address does not change. The date of last modification is published and exposed to search engines. Every earlier version is kept in our database: it is the only proof of what was written and when, and it is indispensable in a dispute, since the limitation period in defamation runs from publication.

Four levels of correction

1. Typo — spelling, punctuation, broken link: corrected without a note, since no fact changes.
2. Factual correction — a fact was wrong: dated note, stating the old and new value.
3. Substantial rectification — the meaning of a passage was wrong: dated note, passage rewritten, explicit mention of the change in meaning, and notification of identifiable people named in it.
4. Withdrawal — the article should not have run: the page stays reachable, stripped of the disputed content, carrying the reason and the date. It is not indexed by search engines. It never returns a 404 error: making an address disappear erases the record of what we published.

What we do not do

• We do not change an article silently once a fact changes.
• We do not delete an article to make a mistake disappear.
• We do not change an article's address to break inbound links, except where anonymisation is granted under a removal request, in which case the old address redirects to the new one.
• We do not take down an article at the request of an advertiser, an elected official or an administration: only an established error, a court decision or a right-to-be-forgotten balancing exercise can justify it.

When a correction replaces a right of reply

Article 5 of decree no. 2007-1527 of 24 October 2007, which implements the online right of reply now set out in article 1-1, III of the LCEN (the decree still refers to the former article 6, IV), exempts the publication director from publishing a reply if the deletion or correction requested is made within three days of receiving the request. Where we take that route, the correction is entered in the right-of-reply register, the dated note is published at the foot of the article, and the requester is informed in writing. Failing an effective correction within that window, the reply is published.