AJ Liebling’s famous aphorism – “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” – cannot be said often enough.

I imagine there are journalists in Paris saying something like this today. But if they are working for Le Monde, they will doubtless be saying it loudly and angrily, because one of the men who owns the newspaper has reminded the journalists that they are not as independent as they might have imagined.

HSBC tax row: Le Monde owners attack newspaper's coverage Read more

Pierre Bergé, president of Le Monde’s supervisory board and one of the wealthy businessmen responsible for saving the paper from bankruptcy in 2010, has attacked the editorial staff for publishing the names of HSBC clients who opened Swiss accounts, which may have been used to avoid tax.

In a radio interview, he accused the paper of “informing” on the clients, asking rhetorically: “Is it the role of a newspaper to throw the names of people out there?”

And then came the comment that goes to the heart of the unceasing debate about private newspaper ownership:

It wasn’t for this that I allowed them gain their independence.

So what was it for, Monsieur Bergé? What does independence mean if you cannot use it? In what way is your intervention a statement of independence?

Pierre Bergé. Photograph: Remy De La Mauviniere/AP

The journalists, in condemning Bergé’s “intrusion into editorial content”, told him to stick to commercial strategy and leave the news to them. But that’s somewhat naive.

The reason that people own newspapers, especially loss-making newspapers, is all about having influence over editorial content. And one key part of that influence is to ensure that their mates, the wealthy élite, are protected from scrutiny.

Note that Bergé, 84, and a co-founder of Yves Saint Laurent couture house, was not the only shareholder to protest. He was supported by Matthieu Pigasse, head of Lazard investment bank in Paris, who referred worryingly to the danger of the paper “falling into a form of fiscal McCarthyism and informing”.

Bergé, Pigasse and the telecoms magnate Xavier Niel signed an agreement in 2010 to guarantee Le Monde’s editorial independence.

The paper, in company with the Guardian, has played a leading role in revealing how HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm helped clients to avoid or evade billions of pounds in taxes.

The Guardian, however, is truly independent because it is owned by a trust rather than a group of wealthy men.