The press
The newspaper has a long history and a strong tradition in France. The French press, in the form of reviews and news sheets, has its origins in the early 17th century with Théophraste Renaudot’s La Gazette, which began in 1631. It was not for another 250 years, however, with the passage of an act in 1881 allowing greater freedoms, that the press began to expand significantly. At the beginning of World War II, Paris offered some 30 daily papers, many with national followings and most with a clear political affiliation. The number of newspapers (and periodicals as well) declined sharply after the war, in some cases for political reasons but in others as a result of takeovers, collaborative ventures, and competition from television. In 1944 the Paris-based Le Monde was founded, and it became the most informed and influential of modern French newspapers. Other influential and widely circulating Paris dailies include Le Figaro, Libération, and France-Soir. Among the smaller dailies are the Roman Catholic La Croix l’Événement and the communist L’Humanité. In the 1950s illustrated magazines began to proliferate (echoing a trend of the 1930s); some of these were popular magazines of general interest and some were directed at specific markets, such as Elle, Marie-Claire, and Vogue Paris for women and L’Express, Le Point, and Le Nouvel Observateur, which are political. Few, however, have enjoyed the popular success and wide distribution of the news-oriented Paris-Match. By the late 20th century, three specific factors characterized the French press: first, the expansion of the regional daily paper, with Ouest-France enjoying the largest circulation in the country; second, the growth of specialized magazine journalism; and third, the appearance since the early 1960s of free newspapers essentially for advertising purposes, which are distributed weekly in the millions.