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, Gazette (afterwards called the Gazette de France), started in 1615 under the patronage and with the active co-operation of Cardinal Richelieu. The first editor and printer was Théophraste 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 Cardinal, and often in his own handwriting.[2]

In 1672 Jean Donneau de Visé established the Mercure galant. Its title later changed to Nouveau Mercure (1717-1721), and in 1728 to Mercure de France, a designation retained, with minor modification, until 1853, when the paper finally ceased. It had many prominent contributes and in 1790 its circulation rose rapidly and reached a peak of 13,000 copies.[3]

1789-1870

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

Under the Old regime, France had a small number of heavily censored newspapers which needed royal licenses to operate. The meetings of the Estates-General in 1789 fostered an enormous demand for news, and over 130 newspapers appeared by the end of the year. The next decade and the tumultuous events of the French Revolution 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 French press saw for itself a lofty role: advancing civic republicanism based on public service; it 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 and Jacques Hébert. During the conservative era of the Directory, from 1794 to 1799, newspapers declined sharply in importance. Napoleon took the final step: he allowed only four papers in Paris and one in each of the other departments; all of them 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 messages and written for an establishment audience, with the Moniteur representing the majority view in the French assembly and the Mercure representing the minority.[9]

In June 1836 La Presse became the first French newspaper to include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend its readership and increase its profitability; other titles soon copied the formula.

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]

France was a democratic society in the 1930s, but the people were kept in the dark about critical issues of foreign policy. The government tightly controlled all of the media to promulgate propaganda to support the government's foreign policy of appeasement to the aggressions of Italy and especially Nazi Germany. There were 253 daily newspapers, all owned separately. The five major national papers based in Paris were all under the control of special interests, especially right-wing political and business interests that supported appeasement. They were all venal, taking large secret subsidies to promote the policies of various special interests. Many leading journalists were secretly on the government payroll. The regional and local newspapers were heavily dependent on government advertising and published news and editorials to suit Paris. Most of the international news was distributed through the Havas agency, which was largely controlled by the government.[14]

Alternative news sources were likewise tightly controlled. Radio was a potentially powerful new medium, but France was quite laggard in consumer ownership of radio sets, and the government impose very strict controls. After 1938, stations were allowed only three brief daily bulletins, of seven minutes each, to cover all the day's news. The Prime Minister's office closely supervised the news items that were to be broadcast. Newsreels were tightly censored; they were told to feature none controversial but glamorous entertainers, film premieres, sporting events, high-fashion, new automobiles, an official ceremonies. Motion pictures likely likewise were censored, and were encouraged to reinforce stereotypes to the effect that the French were always lovers of liberty and justice, contending against cruel and barbarous Germans. The government-subsidized films that glorified military virtues and the French Empire. The goal was to tranquilize public opinion, to give it little or nothing to work with, so as not to interfere with the policies of the national government. When serious crises emerged such as the Munich crisis of 1938, people were puzzled and mystified by what was going on. When war came in 1939, Frenchman had little understanding of the issues, and little correct information. They suspiciously distrusted the government, with the result that French morale in the face of the war with Germany was badly prepared. [15]

Since 1940

The press was heavily censored during the Second World War; the Paris newspapers were under tight German supervision by collaborators; others were closed.[16] In 1944, the Free French liberated Paris, and seized control of all of the collaborationist newspapers. They turned the presses and operations over to new teams of editors and publishers, and provided financial support. Thus for example The previously high-prestige Le Temps was replaced by the new daily Le Monde.[17]

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. ↑ Anthony Adamthwaite, Grandeur and Misery: France’s Bid for Power in Europe 1914-1940 (1995) pp 175-92.
  15. ↑ Adamthwaite, Grandeur and Misery: France’s Bid for Power in Europe 1914-1940 (1995) pp 175-92.
  16. ↑ Valerie Holman, "The Impact of War: British Publishers and French Publications 1940-1944," Publishing History (2000), Issue 48, pp 41-65.
  17. ↑ Clyde Thogmartin, The National Daily Press of France (1998) p 11

Further reading

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