The Media in France

Raymond Kuhn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781134980529
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This up-to-date, accessible textbook presents a comprehensive overview of the history, present and future prospects of French media, and considers the successes and failures of the French media policy from 1945 to the present day.
Raymond Kuhn investigates the politics and economics of the press, radio and television, from the days of state intervention and monopoly provision to current trends towards deregulation and pluralism, and discusses the importance of the `new media' of cable and satellite broadcasting. Kuhn explores in particular the changing inter-relationship between media and state, as ownership and indirect interference decline while the state remains a key part of the media landscape in its policy making and regulatory roles.
The Media in France is essential reading for all students of French, European and Media Studies.

Chapter 1
The press: history and economics

With a total of 2,913 separate titles published in 1990, the press in contemporary France encompasses a wide spectrum of printed material.¹ It includes local, regional and national newspapers, published daily and weekly, catering for a variety of tastes, interests and points of view. It also comprises specialist magazines and periodicals, which seek to satisfy the myriad demands for information, education and entertainment of a variegated, heterogeneous society. The geographical, social and cultural diversity of France is to a large degree reflected in the richness of its press. So too are different shades of economic, party political and ideological opinion. Taken at face value, the press industry in France produces a very broad range of products—from simple local freesheets to glossy international magazines—from which consumers can make their choice. As a result, the French press appears to be a system of bewildering complexity, whose main characteristics tend to militate against the formulation of simple overarching generalizations.

Yet at the same time there is evidence of countervailing trends to offset this initial picture of apparently healthy pluralism. Faced with competition in a media-rich environment, some sections of the press have contracted and gone into decline. In key sectors there has been a clear tendency towards concentration of ownership and in many parts of France domination of the market by a single regional newspaper is the norm. A small number of companies, most notably the Hersant group, have spread their tentacles to control broad swathes of the press and publishing industries. Moreover, the diversification strategy followed by several of these groups has included attempts to extend their controlling interests to incorporate other media.² As a result, the issue of control of information by a few multimedia companies has come on to the policy agenda, raising important questions about their political and economic power.

Indeed, much of the postwar policy debate on the press in France has reflected the tension between the desirability of promoting pluralism and diversity on the one hand and the recognition of the weight of economic factors working in favour of concentration and rationalization on the other. What is taken to be the optimal balancing point in this equation reflects the different ideological views of media practitioners and policy makers alike. In particular, the nature and extent of state intervention to remedy perceived defects in the operation of the market remains a thorny issue on which, predictably, it has proved impossible to achieve political or media consensus.

This theme is one of several covered in this and the following chapter on the press. This first chapter begins with a historical overview of the development of the press from the late eighteenth century to the present day, charting the rise and decline of the press as a mass medium of communication. The main focus in this section (as throughout chapters chapter 1 and 2) is on daily newspapers. The second section examines those economic features which have exerted a significant impact on the configuration of the postwar press system.

The short concluding section places the press within the context of the French media system as a whole, emphasizing both the complementarity and competition between the press and the audiovisual media.

THE HISTORY OF THE PRESS

The golden age of the French press: 1870–1914

The press is by far the oldest of the mass media in France. The first periodical was published in 1631, while the first daily newspaper, the Journal de Paris, appeared in 1777. Unprecedented political freedom in the period immediately following the 1789 Revolution, combined with low publishing costs, resulted in a rapid growth in the number of newspaper titles.³ As a result, domestic politics began to be covered more fully than ever before, while at the same time a tradition of overtly partisan journalism started to take root. Once the initial revolutionary fervour had died down, however, many of these newspapers disappeared as a climate of reaction set in. The 1848 Revolution led to another huge surge in the number of newspaper titles published. Again, however, many of them did not survive for long. Some gave up the ghost even before the short-lived Second Republic (1848–51) was replaced by the repressive regime of the Second Empire (1851–70). Others were suppressed soon after the coup d’état of December 1851.

Apart from these two short periods after the 1789 and 1848 Revolutions, none of the other regimes which governed France prior to the establishment of the Third Republic (1870–1940) was particularly beneficial towards the press.⁴ It was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the press began a period of unprecedented development during which it achieved the status of a medium of mass communication. More particularly, in the years between the collapse of the Second Empire in 1870 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the daily newspaper press underwent a massive expansion in both the number of different titles published and the size of its total readership.

Even a brief examination of the relevant aggregate statistics on the daily press reveals the phenomenal extent of the growth during this period. In 1870 the total print run of daily newspapers was 1,420,000, which represented the publication of a mere 37 dailies for every 1,000 members of the population. In the same year there were 36 Paris-based and 100 provincial daily titles. In contrast, by 1914 there were as many as 80 different Paris dailies and no fewer than 242 provincial daily titles (see tables 1.1 and 1.2). Moreover, during the same period the total print run of daily papers had reached 9,500,000, which represented an impressive total of 244 daily papers for every 1,000 inhabitants. This spectacular market penetration enabled France to occupy first place in Europe for the number of daily newspapers produced per capita (Great Britain sold only 160 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1914), due in no small part to the fact that French newspapers were among the cheapest in the world. Little wonder then that for many commentators this period represented the golden age of the French press.⁵

This historic growth was attributable to the fortuitous combination of various factors—technological, economic, social and political—which by the outbreak of the First World War had placed the French press at or near the top of the international league table. For example, during the nineteenth century major technical advances were made in the composition, publishing and distribution of newspapers, all of which helped transform the press from an artisanal craft into an industrial enterprise. Whereas previous technical developments had been limited to incremental improvements to the existing arrangements, by the late nineteenth century the scope and pace of change had brought about a paradigmatic shift in production and distribution methods. A whole new era in newspaper publishing had begun.

The invention of the rotary press was part of this technological leap forward. It greatly speeded up the process of printing, with the result that by the 1860s 16,000 sheets per hour could be printed, compared with only 2,000 sheets per hour 40 years previously. Innovations in typesetting and the spread of electrical power also played an important role in improving newspaper production.⁶ The advent of the telegraph facilitated the collection and transfer of information, while the expansion of the railway network—particularly during the Second Empire—was crucial in improving distribution.⁷ In short, major technical advances in the publishing industry and transportation infrastructure lay at the heart of the late nineteenth-century flourishing of the newspaper press in France.

At the same time the period saw the emergence of enterprising industrialists and financiers. Recognizing that progress in technology could be harnessed to create a new popular market for newspapers, they regarded the press as an economic sector ripe for commercial development and exploitation.⁸ With the aid of mass production techniques, the industrialization of the publication process led to a lowering in the cover price of newspapers, which in turn helped boost sales. In 1863 the sale of Le Petit Journal at 5 centimes a copy led to the introduction into the market of what were to become mass circulation newspapers, ‘specifically designed for the masses and not for those interested in politics’.⁹ By 1880 Le Petit Journal had a circulation of 582,000, four times that of its nearest rival and more than a quarter of all the Paris dailies put together.¹⁰

Table 1.1 Number of daily newspaper titles 1788–1990

Meanwhile growing literacy rates and the spread of education in the latter part of the nineteenth century under the aegis of the Jules Ferry legislation led to a greater public demand for information, comment and entertainment, which the press rushed to satisfy. Papers increased their number of pages, while their content widened to cover a broader range of social and cultural topics as well as the more traditional political material. Numbers entering the journalistic profession grew as the press became an important source of employment.

Table 1.2 Daily newspaper print-run figures 1788–1990 (in ’000s)

The new mass circulation papers which sprang up around this time included Le Petit Parisien, which after the turn of the century became the biggest-selling newspaper in France (and indeed the world) with a print run of 1.5 million copies by 1914. In fact, four papers (Le Petit Journal, Le Petit Parisien, Le Matin and Le Journal) enjoyed a combined circulation of 4.5 million before the First World War. In addition to these mass circulation papers, a whole new generation of smaller-scale newspapers sprang up, while many existing ones took advantage of the growth in public demand to increase their circulation. These included quality newspapers serving an elite market, as well as newspapers with a strong partisan political commitment. The local and regional press also benefited from expansion. By the late nineteenth century large regional papers were already becoming a feature of the French press system, with fierce competition taking place between different newspapers in the main towns across the country.

Political developments also played a part in helping to bring about a regulatory framework more sympathetic to the expansion of the press at this time. For example, the provisions of the 1881 press statute, which guaranteed freedom of opinion and the right to publish, were indicative of a major change of attitude on the part of the state authorities towards the print media.¹¹ Moreover, this change in press legislation coincided with the implantation in France of a political system of parliamentary democracy based on (male) universal suffrage, a measure which in itself provoked greater interest among the citizenry in political information.¹² While to a large extent, therefore, the impetus behind the development of the newspaper press in the late nineteenth century lay in a combination of technological, economic and social changes, a new political climate also made an important contribution.

The inter-war years

The First World War brought the golden age of the French press to an inglorious end. During the conflict the government instituted a system of ferocious censorship to boost national morale. However successful this policy may have been in the short term in mobilizing popular support for the war, the brainwashing propaganda campaign appeared to alienate a large section of the newspaper readership. At the same time the press had to cope with an adverse combination of economic circumstances which seriously affected newspaper production and distribution: an acute shortage of labour, severe restrictions on the supply of paper, troublesome transportation problems, a marked reduction in advertising revenue and a general increase in production costs. While the mass circulation papers were better able to withstand these adverse conditions, many newspapers were not so resilient and were forced to close down.

Between the two world wars there was a marked decline in the number of daily newspaper titles published. The number of Paris dailies had dropped to 31 by 1939, while their provincial counterparts had fallen back to 175. In contrast, the total daily newspaper print run had edged up to 11 million by 1939, almost all of which was due to the expanding circulation of the provincial dailies. The big regional papers in particular were becoming more important players in the newspaper market. By the outbreak of the Second World War parity between the Paris and provincial dailies had been attained, with total print runs of about 5.5 million each.

The powerful position enjoyed by press barons came to the fore during the inter-war period. The most successful of these was the textile manufac-turer Jean Prouvost, a future owner of Le Figaro, who made a spectacular entry into the newspaper market with his ‘straightforward commercial approach’.¹³ In 1930 he purchased the daily evening paper Paris-Soir which at the time had a derisory circulation. Through a combination of sensational reporting, serious journalism, pictures and sports coverage, the paper became a major success story with a print run of well over 1.5 million by 1939. Prouvost also launched a successful weekly women’s magazine, Marie-Claire, in 1937. Finally, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, he took over the sports magazine Match and turned it into a weekly news magazine, which a few years after the war was relaunched with the slightly new title of Paris-Match. As an illustrated weekly news magazine Paris-Match was to constitute ‘one of the most glaring successes of the postwar French press’.¹⁴ The Prouvost formula for success, however, was not typical in a decade punctuated by economic crisis and political scandals. Though the total circulation of daily papers increased gradually between the wars, the per capita growth was small. Moreover, comparison with Great Britain showed the extent to which the French press was falling behind in international terms. Whereas 261 newspapers per 1,000 inhabitants were sold in France in 1939, in Britain the corresponding figure had already reached 360.

Vichy and Resistance

Inevitably the Second World War entailed massive dislocating consequences for the French press, as the population came to terms with the psychological shock of military defeat, the grim reality of Nazi occupation in the North and the vainglorious pretensions of the Vichy regime in the South. It is tempting to present a simple picture of a wartime society divided between the antithetical reactions of collaboration and resistance. In fact, however, these polar opposites were only two among a range of several possible responses to the unfurling of events between 1940 and 1944. A wait-and-see attitude (attentisme) was particularly widespread in French society. However, the official and clandestine press tended to emphasize the simplistic duality rather than reflect the complexity of reactions to the issues of German occupation, Pétainism and de Gaulle’s call to continue the fight against the Nazi invader. If the press is rarely an accurate mirror of any society, during the Second World War the propaganda of the French press grossly distorted the range and strength of public opinion.distorted the range and strength of public opinion.

In terms of press organization, the fall of France in 1940 led to many of the Paris papers such as Le Temps and Paris-Soir fleeing to the provinces, most notably to Lyons. Others simply stopped publishing altogether. With the country divided into...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• The Media in France
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Press: History and Economics
• Chapter 2: The Press: Politics
• Chapter 3: Radio
• Chapter 4: Television Under de Gaulle
• Chapter 5: Television: The Decline and Fall of the ORTF
• Chapter 6: Television: The End of the State Monopoly
• Chapter 7: Television: Privatization and Liberalization
• Chapter 8: The New Media
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Select Bibliography