L'Humanité

For the 1999 French film, see Humanité.
L'Humanité
Type Daily newspaper
Format Berliner
Owner(s) L'Humanité
Editor Patrick Le Hyaric
Founded 1904 (1904)
Political alignment Communist, alter-globalization, eco-socialism
Headquarters Paris
Country France
Website www.humanite.fr

L'Humanité (pronounced: [lymaniˈte], French for "Humanity"), formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party (PCF). The paper is now independent, although it maintains close links to the PCF. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, L'Humanite would not exist."[1]

History and profile

Pre-World War II

L'Humanité was founded in 1904[2][3] by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).[1][4] Jaurès also edited the paper until his assassination on 31 July 1914.[5]

When the Socialists split at the 1920 Tours Congress, the Communists retained control of L'Humanité. Therefore, it became a communist paper despite its socialist origin.[6] The PCF has published it ever since. The PCF owns 40 per cent of the paper with the remaining shares held by staff, readers and "friends" of the paper. The paper is also sustained by the annual Fête de l'Humanité, held in the working class suburbs of Paris, at Le Bourget, near Aubervilliers, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the country.

The fortunes of L'Humanité have fluctuated with those of the PCF. During the 1920s, when the PCF was politically isolated, it was kept in existence only by donations from Party members.

Louis Aragon started to write for L'Humanité in 1933, in the "news in brief" section. He later led Les Lettres françaises, the 's weekly literary supplement. With the formation of the Popular Front in 1936, L'Humanité 's circulation and status increased, and many leading French intellectuals wrote for it. L'Humanité was banned during World War II but published clandestinely until liberation of Paris from German occupation.

After World War II

Its status was highest in the years after the war: during the late 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, the PCF was the dominant party of the French left. L'Humanité enjoyed a large circulation. Since the 1980s, however, the PCF has been in decline, mostly due to the rise of the Socialist Party, which took over large sections of PCF support, and circulation and economic viability of L'Humanité have declined as well.

Until 1990 the PCF and L'Humanité received regular subsidies from the Soviet Union. According to the French authors Victor Loupan and Pierre Lorrain (fr), L'Humanité received free newsprint from Soviet sources.

Post-Soviet Union

The fall of the Soviet Union and the continued decline of the PCF's electoral base produced a crisis for L'Humanité. Its circulation, more than 500,000 after the war, slumped to under 70,000. In 2001, after a decade of financial decline, the PCF sold 20 per cent of the paper to a group of private investors led by the TV channel TF1 (part of the Bouygues group) and including Hachette (Lagardère Group). TF1 said its motive was "maintenance of media diversity." Despite the irony of a communist newspaper being rescued by private capital, some of which supported right-wing politics, L'Humanité director Patrick Le Hyaric described the sale as "a matter of life or death."

There has been speculation since 2001 that L'Humanité would cease as a daily newspaper. But in contrast to most French newspapers, its publication increased to about 75,000.

After 2001

In 2006, the paper created a weekly edition, L'Humanité dimanche. The same year L'Humanité had a circulation of 52,800 copies.[1] In 2008, it sold its headquarters due to financial problems and called for donations. More than €2 million had been donated by the end of 2008.

Fête de l'Humanité

The newspaper organises the annual Fête de l'Humanité festival as a fundraising event.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The press in France". BBC. 11 November 2006. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
  2. ↑ John Tebbel (2003). "Print Media. France". Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  3. ↑ "Historical development of the media in France" (PDF). McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  4. ↑ Cathie Burton; Alun Drake (2004). Hitting the Headlines in Europe: A Country-by-country Guide to Effective Media Relations. Kogan Page Publishers. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-7494-4226-2. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  5. ↑ Raphael Levy (January 1929). "The Daily Press in France". The Modern Language Journal. 13 (4). JSTOR 315897. – via JSTOR (subscription required)
  6. ↑ Alex Hughes; Keith Reader (1998). Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture. London: Routledge. p. 287. Retrieved 23 November 2014. – via Questia (subscription required)

Further reading

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