L'Humanité

Infobox_Newspaper
name =


type = Daily newspaper
format = Berliner
foundation = 1904
owners = L'Humanité
political = Communist
headquarters = 32 rue Jean Jaurès
F-93528 Saint-Denis Cedex
editor = Patrick Le Hyaric
website = [http://www.humanite.fr/ www.humanite.fr]

"L'Humanité" ("Humanity"), formerly the daily newspaper of the French Communist Party (PCF), was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the SFIO socialist party. The paper is now independent, but still maintains broad links with the PCF.

Overview

When the Socialists split at the 1920 Tours Congress, the Communists retained control of "L'Humanité", and it has been published by the PCF ever since. The PCF owns 40% 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.

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 section "news in brief." He would later lead "Les Lettres françaises", the newspaper'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. During World War II, "L'Humanité" was banned but continued to publish clandestinely until the liberation of Paris from German occupation. Its status was highest in the years immediately after World War II.

During the late 1940s and the 1950s, when 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 the former PCF support base), and the 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, "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, once over 500,000 (after WWII), slumped under 70,000. In 2001, after a decade of financial decline the PCF sold 20% of the paper to a group of private investors led by TV channel TF1 (Bouygues group) and including Hachette (Lagardère group). TF1 said that its motive for buying a share of a failing newspaper was the "maintenance of media diversity." Despite the obvious irony of a Communist newspaper being rescued by private capital, some of which was involved in supporting right-wing politics, "L'Humanité" director Patrick Le Hyaric described the sale as "a matter of life or death."

There has been continued speculation since 2001 that "L'Humanité" will cease publication as a daily newspaper, but so far this has been averted. On the contrary, its publication has increased on the past years. In 2006, it made a new weekly edition, "L'Humanité Dimanche".

External links

*fr icon [http://www.humanite.fr/ L'Humanité website]
*en icon [http://www.humaniteinenglish.com L'Humanité's English website] (see also [http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/article104.html here] about voluntary team translating articles)
* [http://www.humanite-porusski.com L'Humanité en russe]
* [http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb327877302/date L'Humanité's digital archives from 1903 to 1939] in Gallica, the digital library of the BnF
*en icon [http://www.marxists.org/archive/jaures/1904/04/18.htm "Our Goal"] , Jean Jaurès' editorial of the first issue

Further reading

* Victor Loupan and Pierre Lorrain: "L'Argent de Moscou. L'histoire la plus secrete du PCF", Paris, 1994