YNOT EUROPE – A French entrepreneur who made a significant portion of his billions in internet pornography is among a trio of investors set to acquire internationally respected French daily newspaper Le Monde.

Xavier Niel began his forays into adult entertainment and business at the age of 19 when he launched a Minitel sexual contact service in 1986. Minitel was the European forerunner of the internet. Later, he tried his hand at peep shows before founding the internet service provider Iliad (better known as Free), of which he remains the majority shareholder.

Niel joined Yves Saint-Laurent co-founder Pierre Berge and Lazard banker Matthieu Pigasse in tendering an offer for financially trouble Le Monde. Despite strenuous objections from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 90 percent of the members of Le Monde’s primary shareholder, the paper’s journalist’s association, voted in favor of the acquisition.

Sarkozy opposed the Niel-Berge-Pigasse move because the group has close ties to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a French economist and lawyer who in 2007 was selected as the managing director for the International Monetary Fund. Strauss-Kahn is expected to challenge Sarkozy for the Socialist Party’s presidential nomination in 2012.

In selecting Niel-Berge-Pigasse, the journalist’s association turned down a competing offer from a consortium composed of France Telecom subsidiary Orange, the Nouvel Observateur group and Spain’s Prisa, which owns the newspaper El Pais.