L'Humanité

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Newspaper lettering

L'Humanité (German: 'Die Menschheit', also: 'Die Menschlichkeit') is a French daily newspaper and the former central organ of the socialist SFIO (from 1911) and the PCF (from 1923).

history

1904-1914

The newspaper organ, conceived by Jean Jaurès as an instrument for the collection of the fragmented left, also enjoyed the support of sections of the bourgeoisie at the time of its creation.

Prominent employees at the time it was founded were René Viviani , Aristide Briand , Léon Blum , Jean Longuet , Lucien Herr , Jean Allemane , Octave Mirbeau , Henry de Jouvenel , Abel Hermant and Albert Thomas .

The union of the French socialists to form the SFIO in 1905 gave the paper a boost. In 1911 it became the official party organ. In the increasingly tense atmosphere prior to the outbreak of World War I, the paper took a resolute internationalist and pacifist position. As a result, Jaurès was murdered on July 31, 1914 by the militant nationalist Raoul Villain .

1914-1920

Jaurès' successor, Pierre Renaudel , fully supported the war effort of the Entente in the spirit of republican patriotism . In October 1918 he was replaced by Marcel Cachin .

1920-1939

In the course of the split in the SFIO at the Tours Congress (December 25-30, 1920), the party's central organ fell to the pro-Soviet majority and in 1923 it became the official central organ of the PCF. The editorial line turned against the Rif War ; Paul Vaillant-Couturier acted as editor-in-chief from 1926 . During the period of the Popular Front , L'Humanité had a circulation of around 300,000. Part of the mobilization of readers as workers' correspondents and contributors to sales was also the party newspaper's press festival , the Fête de l'Humanité, created in 1930 . However, the Stalinization of the party and its central organ led to the departure of anti-Stalinist workers such as Boris Souvarine . On August 27, 1939, the Daladier IV government banned the paper after it had approved the German-Soviet non-aggression pact .

1939-1945

The newspaper remained banned throughout the war, despite repeated advances by the German occupation authorities from the summer of 1940. 383 issues appeared in secret and played an important role in building up the Resistance after the German attack on the Soviet Union . Numerous employees were murdered, for example Gabriel Péri and Lucien Sampaix . From August 21, 1944, the newspaper officially appeared again.

1945-1994

During the Cold War , L'Humanité took a position in favor of the Soviet Union , not least in view of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. On November 7, 1956, the newspaper's office building was attacked by anti-communist demonstrators. In the face of a rather disinterested police force, the besieged defended themselves with barricades and projectiles. Three demonstrators were killed. The paper compared this siege with the actions of the "counter-revolution" in Hungary.

L'Humanité, on the other hand, was the only French newspaper with a consistently anti-colonialist orientation, which often led to the confiscation of individual issues both during the Indochina War and the Algerian War. Madeleine Riffaud's Algeria article even motivated the OAS to attempt an assassination attempt.

The newspaper's circulation fell from 400,000 copies in 1945 to 150,000 in 1972 and 107,000 in 1986.

Since 1994

From 1994 to 1999 the newspaper no longer operated as the “central organ” of the KPF, but only as the “journal du PCF”. In 1999 there was an explicit reference to the party, which, however, has remained the determining force to this day. 2000–2001 the narrow capital base of the paper broadened. After a severe financial crisis, the sheet consolidated thanks to the influx of outside capital. Since 2004, the newspaper has belonged to 40 percent of the PCF, friends and employees hold ten percent each, the Gesellschaft der Freunde 20 percent and large companies such as savings banks, the TF1 broadcaster and the armaments company Lagardère the rest. This was followed, however, by a modest stabilization.

In order to reduce its debts of an estimated eight million euros, the paper moved out of the prestigious building built in 1989 by Oscar Niemeyer in 2008 . But the sale of the Niemeyer building failed in the summer of 2008, which triggered a new financial crisis that is laboriously mastered by appeals for solidarity.

The paper no longer maintains any foreign correspondents and only has 58 editors.

literature

Web links

Commons : L'Humanité  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ To finance the sheet, see Pierre Albert: Les sociétés du journal l'Humanité de 1904 à 1920. In: Christian Delporte, Claude Pennetier, Jean-François Sirinelli, Serge Wolikow (eds.): L'Humanité de Jaurès à nos jours. Nouveau Monde éditions, 2004, pp. 129–42 with the lists of shareholders from 1904 and 1907. Jaurès had made a name for himself in the Dreyfus affair in 1903 with a major speech in favor of the unjustly convicted captain.
  2. ↑ see also Alexandre Courban (2014): L'Humanité: de Jean Jaurès à Marcel Cachin (1904-1939) , Chapter 4.2.3 ('Vers la guerre'), ISBN 978-2708242784 .
  3. ↑ Roger Bourderon : La Négociation. Été 1940 , Syllepse, Paris 2001.
  4. ^ François Marcot: Dictionnaire historique de la Résistance , Bouquins, p. 729, 2006.
  5. ^ Jean-Pierre Arthur Bernard: Paris rouge, 1944–1964. Les communistes français dans la capitale . éditions Champ Vallon, 1991, p. 27.
  6. ^ Jean-Pierre A. Bernard: "November 1956 à Paris" . In: Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire , n ° 30, avril-juin 1991, pp. 68-81.
  7. ↑ 15 millions d'euros: le prix de vente du siège de L'Humanité à Saint-Denis . In: Liberation , November 30, 2007.