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 Front page ofL'Humanité on 25 February 2010. Commenting on theGreek government-debt crisis, the headline reads "Greece doesn't want to pay rich people's bills". | |
| Type | Dailynewspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Berliner |
| Owner(s) | L'Humanité |
| Editor | Patrick Le Hyaric |
| Founded | 1904; 121 years ago (1904) |
| Political alignment | Left-wing |
| Headquarters | Paris |
| Country | France |
| ISSN | 0242-6870 |
| Website | www.humanite.fr |
L'Humanité (French pronunciation:[lymanite];lit. 'Humanity') is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organisation of theSFIO,de facto, and thereafter of theFrench Communist Party (PCF), and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world,L'Humanité would not exist."[1]
L'Humanité was founded in 1904[2][3] byJean Jaurès, leader of theFrench Socialist Party (PSF), which merged the following year in theFrench Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).[1][4] Jaurès also edited the paper until his assassination on 31 July 1914.[5]
When the SFIO split at the 1920Tours Congress, the Communists took control ofL'Humanité, which became the official organisation of theFrench Communist Party (PCF), despite its socialist origins, while the SFIO retained control of the minor dailyLe Populaire.[6] The PCF has published it ever since and 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 annualFête de l'Humanité, held in the working class suburbs ofParis, atLe Bourget, nearAubervilliers, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the country.
The fortunes ofL'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 forL'Humanité in 1933, in the "news in brief" section. He later ledLes Lettres françaises, the paper's weekly literary supplement. With the formation of thePopular 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 continued publication secretly until theliberation of Paris from German occupation in 1944.
The paper's status was highest in the years afterWorld War II, when the PCF was the dominant party of the French left andL'Humanité enjoyed a large circulation. Since the 1980s, however, the PCF has been in decline, mostly due to the rise of theSocialist Party, which took over large sections of PCF support; circulation and economic viability ofL'Humanité have declined as well.
Until 1990 the PCF andL'Humanité received regular subsidies from theSoviet Union. According to the French authorsVictor Loupan andPierre Lorrain (fr),L'Humanité received free newsprint from Soviet sources.
The fall of the Soviet Union and the continued decline of the PCF's electoral base produced a crisis forL'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% of the paper to a group of private investors led by the TV channelTF1 (part of theBouygues group) and includingHachette (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 supportedright-wing politics,L'Humanité directorPatrick Le Hyaric described the sale as "a matter of life or death."
Since 2001, there has been speculation thatL'Humanité would cease as a daily newspaper. However, in contrast to most French newspapers, its publication has actually since increased to about 75,000.
In 2006, the paper created a weekly edition,L'Humanité Dimanche. The same yearL'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. In 2020,L'Humanité had a circulation of 39,522 copies.[7]
| Year | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circulation | 103,738 | 106,151 | 107,022 | 105,599 | 105,069 | 102,372 | 100,632 | 100,831 | 100,012 | 97,009 | 100,259 | 96,789 |
The newspaper organizes the annualFête de l'Humanité festival as a fundraising event.[8]
The Fête de l'Huma, as the faithful call it, began in 1930 to raise money for the official Communist Party newspaper, L'Humanité. Today, the left-wing daily is no longer the party's official organ, but it continues to run the annual festival.
