History of French newspapers

Newspapers have played a major role in French politics, economy and society since the 17th century.

Origins

The first French newspaper was the Gazette (afterwards called the Gazette de France), established in 1615 under the patronage and with the active co-operation of Cardinal Richelieu. The first editor and printer was Theophraste Renaudot. The first weekly edition appeared in May 1631.[1] Each edition of the paper, which cost six centimes, consisted of a single sheet ( folded into eight pages), and was divided into two parts. The first page was entitled Gazette, the second Nouvelles ordinaires de divers endroits. It commonly began with foreign and with national news. Much of its earliest foreign news came directly from the minister, and often in his own handwriting.[2]

In 1672 the Mercure galant was established by Donneau de Vize. Its title was later changed to Nouveau Mercure, and in 1728 to Mercure de France, a designation retained, with slight modification, until 1853, when the paper finally ceased. It had many prominent contributes and in 1790 its circulation rose rapidly and reached a circulation of 13,000 copies.[3]

French Revolution

A copy of L’Ami du peuple stained with the blood of Marat

In the Old regime there were a small number of heavily censored newspapers that needed a royal license to operate. The meetings of the Estates-General in 1789 created an enormous demand for news, and over 130 newspapers appeared by the end of the year. The next decade saw 2000 newspapers founded, with 500 in Paris alone. Most lasted only a matter of weeks. Together they became the main communication medium, combined with the very large pamphlet literature.[4] Newspapers were read aloud in taverns and clubs, and circulated hand to hand. The press saw its lofty role to be the advancement of civic republicanism based on public service, and downplayed the liberal, individualistic goal of making a profit.[5][6][7]

The Moniteur Universel served as the official record of legislative debates. Jean-Paul Marat gained enormous influence through his powerful L'Ami du peuple with its attacks on scandals and conspiracies that alarmed the people until he was assassinated in 1793. In addition to Marat, numerous important politicians came to the fore through journalism, including Maximilien de Robespierre. During the conservative era of the Directory, 1794-99, newspapers decline sharply in importance. Napoleon took the final step: he allowed only four papers in Paris and one in each of the other departments; all were closely censored.[8]

Under Napoleon, the organ of official information was the Moniteur (Gazette nationale, ou le moniteur universal), founded in 1789 under the same general management as the Mercure. Both newspapers were sources of establishment message and written for an establish audience, with the Moniteur representing the majority view in the French assembly and the Mercure representing the minority.[9]

Third Republic

The democratic political structure of the French Third Republic (1870-1940) was supported by the proliferation of politicized newspapers. The circulation of the daily press in Paris went from 1 million in 1870 to 5 million in 1910; it then leveled off and reached 6 million in 1939. Advertising grew rapidly, providing a steady financial basis. A new liberal press law of 1881 abandoned the restrictive practices that had been typical for a century. High-speed rotary Hoe presses, introduced in the 1860s, facilitated quick turnaround time and cheaper publication. New types of popular newspapers, especially Le Petit Journal reached an audience more interested in diverse entertainment and gossip rather than hard news. It captured a quarter of the Parisian market, and forced the rest to lower their prices. The main dailies employed their own journalists who competed for news flashes. All newspapers relied upon the Agence Havas (now Agence France-Presse), a telegraphic news service with a network of reporters and contracts with Reuters to provide world service. The staid old papers retained their loyal clientele because of their concentration on serious political issues.[10]

The Roman Catholic Assumptionist order revolutionized pressure group media by its national newspaper La Croix. It vigorously advocated for traditional Catholicism while at the same time innovating with the most modern technology and distribution systems, with regional editions tailored to local taste. Secularists and Republicans recognize the newspaper as their greatest enemy, especially when it took the lead in attacking Dreyfus as a traitor and stirred up anti-Semitism. When Dreyfus was pardoned, the Radical government in 1900 closed down the entire Assumptionist order and its newspaper.[11]

Banks secretly paid certain newspapers to promote particular financial interests, and hide or cover up possible most behavior. They also took payments for favorable notices in news articles of commercial products. Sometimes, a newspaper would blackmail a business by threatening to publish unfavorable information unless the business immediately started advertising in the paper. Foreign governments, especially Russia and Turkey, secretly paid the press hundreds of thousands of francs a year to guarantee favorable coverage of the bonds it was selling in Paris. When the real news was bad about Russia, as during its 1905 Revolution or during its war with Japan, it raised the ante to millions. During the World War, newspapers became more of a propaganda agency on behalf of the war effort, and avoided critical commentary. They seldom reported the achievements of the Allies, crediting all the good news to the French army. In a word, the newspapers were not independent champions of the truth, but secretly paid advertisements for banking.[12]

Regional newspapers flourished after 1900. However the Parisian newspapers were largely stagnant after the war. The major postwar success story was Paris Soir; which lacked any political agenda and was dedicated to providing a mix of sensational reporting to aid circulation, and serious articles to build prestige. By 1939 its circulation was over 1.7 million, double that of its nearest rival the tabloid Le Petit Parisien. In addition to its daily paper Paris Soir sponsored a highly successful women's magazine Marie-Claire. Another magazine Match was modeled after the photojournalism of the American magazine Life. [13]

Since 1940

The press was heavily censored during the Second World War; the Paris newspapers were under tight German supervision and many were closed.[14]

In the early 21st century, the best-selling daily was the regional Ouest-France in 47 local editions, followed by Le Progres of Lyon, La Voix du Nord in Lille, and Provençal in Marseille. In Paris the Communists published l'Humanite while Le Monde Figaro had local rivals in Le Parisien, L'Aurore and the leftist Libération.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Jeremy Popkin, The Press in France (1999)
  2. ↑ Charles Calvert, The French Newspaper (1933)
  3. ↑ Anthony Smith, The Newspaper: An International History (1979)
  4. ↑ Harvey Chisick, "The pamphlet literature of the French revolution: An overview." History of European ideas (1993) 17#2-3 pp: 149-166.
  5. ↑ Jane Chapman, "Republican citizenship, ethics and the French revolutionary press," Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics (2005) 2#1 pp. 7–12
  6. ↑ H. Gough, The Newspaper Press in the French Revolution (1988)
  7. ↑ Jeremy Popkin, Revolutionary News: The Press in France 1789- 1799 (1990)
  8. ↑ Paul R Hanson, The A to Z of the French Revolution (2007) pp 233-35 online
  9. ↑ David I. Kulstein, "The Ideas of Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, Publisher of the Moniteur Universel, on the French Revolution.," French Historical Studies (166) 4#3 pp 304-19
  10. ↑ Patrick H, Hutton, ed. Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870-1940 (1986) 2:690-94
  11. ↑ Judson Mather, "The Assumptionist Response to Secularisation, 1870-1900," in Robert J. Bazucha, ed., Modern European Social History (1972) pp: 59-89.
  12. ↑ See Theodore Zeldin, France: 1848-1945 (1977) ch 11, "Newspapers and corruption" pp 492-573; pp 522-24 on foreign subsidies.
  13. ↑ Hutton 2:692-94
  14. ↑ Valerie Holman, "The Impact of War: British Publishers and French Publications 1940-1944," Publishing History (2000), Issue 48, pp 41-65.

Further reading


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