Editing L'Humanité

{{Short description|French newspaper}}
{{For|the 1999 French film|Humanité}}
{{More citations needed|date=December 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2014}}
{{Infobox newspaper
| name = {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}}
| image = L'Humanité.jpg
| caption = Front page of {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} on 25 February 2010. Commenting on the [[Greek government-debt crisis]], the headline reads "Greece doesn't want to pay rich people's bills".
| type = Daily [[newspaper]]
| format = [[Berliner (format)|Berliner]]
| foundation = {{start date and age|1904}}
| owners = L'Humanité
| headquarters = [[Paris]]
| political = [[Left-wing politics|Left-wing]]
| publishing_country = France
| editor = [[Patrick Le Hyaric]]
| ISSN = 0242-6870
| website = [https://www.humanite.fr/ www.humanite.fr]
}}
'''{{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}}''' ({{IPA|fr|lymanite}}; {{literally|Humanity}}) is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organisation of the [[SFIO]], ''de facto'', and thereafter of the [[French Communist Party]] (PCF), and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} would not exist."<ref name=bbc11/>

==History and profile==

===Pre-World War II===
{{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} was founded in 1904<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2003 |title=Print Media. France |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Americana |url=http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/DF_media-prt.shtml |access-date=1 November 2014 |author-link=John William Tebbel |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509082817/http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/DF_media-prt.shtml |archive-date=9 May 2019 |author=John Tebbel |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Historical development of the media in France|url=http://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335236220.pdf|publisher=McGraw-Hill Education|access-date=24 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150225005455/http://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335236220.pdf|archive-date=25 February 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> by [[Jean Jaurès]], leader of the [[French Socialist Party (1902)|French Socialist Party]] (PSF), which merged the following year in the [[French Section of the Workers' International]] (SFIO).<ref name=bbc11/><ref>{{cite book|author1=Cathie Burton|author2=Alun Drake|title=Hitting the Headlines in Europe: A Country-by-country Guide to Effective Media Relations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VpPPptHEDEYC&pg=PA118|access-date=25 November 2014|year=2004|publisher=Kogan Page Publishers|isbn=978-0-7494-4226-2|page=118}}</ref> Jaurès also edited the paper until his assassination on 31 July 1914.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Raphael Levy|title=The Daily Press in France|journal=The Modern Language Journal|date=January 1929|volume=13|issue=4|pages=294–303|jstor=315897|doi=10.1111/j.1540-4781.1929.tb01247.x}}</ref>

When the SFIO split at the 1920 [[Tours Congress]], the Communists took control of {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}}, which became the official organisation of the [[French Communist Party]] (PCF), despite its socialist origins, while the SFIO retained control of the minor daily ''[[Le Populaire (French newspaper)|Le Populaire]]''.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Alex Hughes|author2=Keith Reader|title=Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture|date=1998|publisher=Routledge|location=London|page=287|url=https://www.questia.com/read/108241656/encyclopedia-of-contemporary-french-culture|access-date=|archive-date=29 November 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129113806/https://www.questia.com/read/108241656/encyclopedia-of-contemporary-french-culture|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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 annual ''Fête de l'Humanité'', held in the working class suburbs of [[Paris]], at [[Le Bourget]], near [[Aubervilliers]], and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the country.

The fortunes of {{Lang|fr|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 {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} in 1933, in the "news in brief" section. He later led ''[[Les Lettres Françaises|Les Lettres françaises]]'', the paper's weekly literary supplement. With the formation of the [[Popular Front (France)|Popular Front]] in 1936, {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}}{{'}}s circulation and status increased, and many leading French intellectuals wrote for it.
{{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} was banned during World War II but continued publication secretly until the [[liberation of Paris]] from German occupation in 1944.

=== After World War II ===
The paper's status was highest in the years after [[World War II]], when the PCF was the dominant party of the French left and  {{Lang|fr|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 (France)|Socialist Party]], which took over large sections of PCF support; circulation and economic viability of {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} have declined as well.

Until 1990 the PCF and {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} received regular subsidies from the [[Soviet Union]]. According to the French authors [[Victor Loupan]] and [[:fr:Pierre Lorrain|Pierre Lorrain (fr)]], {{Lang|fr|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 {{Lang|fr|L'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 channel [[TF1]] (part of the [[Bouygues]] group) and including [[Hachette (publishing)|Hachette]] ([[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 supported [[right-wing politics]], {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} director [[Patrick Le Hyaric]] described the sale as "a matter of life or death."

Since 2001, there has been speculation that {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} would cease as a daily newspaper. However, in contrast to most French newspapers, its publication has actually since increased to about 75,000.

===After 2001===
In 2006, the paper created a weekly edition, {{Lang|fr|[[L'Humanité Dimanche]]}}. The same year {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} had a circulation of 52,800 copies.<ref name=bbc11>{{cite news|title=The press in France|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4295349.stm|access-date=22 November 2014|work=BBC|date=11 November 2006}}</ref> 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, {{Lang|fr|L'Humanité}} had a circulation of 39,522 copies.<ref>{{Cite web|title=L'Humanité - ACPM|url=https://www.acpm.fr/Support/l-humanite|access-date=2021-05-06|website=www.acpm.fr}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
!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
|}

==Fête de l'Humanité==
The newspaper organizes the annual ''[[Fête de l'Humanité]]'' festival as a fundraising event.<ref name="French Fair as Worker's Paradise">{{cite news |last1=Porter |first1=Catherine |title=A French Fair as Workers' Paradise, Feting Cuisine, Music and Communism |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/22/world/europe/france-humanity-festival-communism.html |access-date=10 December 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=22 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241010005653/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/22/world/europe/france-humanity-festival-communism.html |archive-date=10 October 2024 |language=English |quote=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.}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|France}}
* [[History of French journalism]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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

==External links==
{{Commons category|L'Humanité}}
*{{in lang|en}} [http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/pages/001/page_56.asp ''Fête de l'Humanité'': A weekend of politics and Rock'n'Roll] – [[Radio France Internationale]]
*{{in lang|fr}} [https://www.humanite.fr/ ''L'Humanité''] (official website)
*{{in lang|ru}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20070428010006/http://www.humanite-porusski.com/ ''L'Humanité'' на русском языке]
*{{in lang|es}} [https://www.cinconoticias.com/ ''Cinco Noticias''] - Actual L'Humanité en Español
*{{in lang|en}} [http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/listes/001/liste_type_article_54.asp Regular French Press Review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090416190350/http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/listes/001/liste_type_article_54.asp |date=16 April 2009 }} – Radio France International
*{{in lang|en}} [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb327877302/date ''L'Humanité''{{'}}s digital archives from 1904 to 1944] – [[Gallica]], the digital library of the [[BnF]] (archived issues themselves are in French)
* {{in lang|fr}}Underground edition of [http://gallica/ark:/12148/cb42456522m/date ''L'Humanité'' (zone nord)]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} from 1939 to 1944 online in [[Gallica]].
* {{in lang|fr}}Underground edition of [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb42396448p/date ''L'Huma'' (Bobigny)] online in [[Gallica]].
* {{in lang|fr}} Underground edition of [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb327877364/date ''L'Humanité. Organe central du Parti communiste S.F.I.C. Ed. spéciale féminine. &#91;Zone nord.&#93;''] online in [[Gallica]].
*{{in lang|en}} [http://www.marxists.org/archive/jaures/1904/04/18.htm "Our Goal"], translation of [[Jean Jaurès]]' editorial of the first issue

{{Newspapers in France}}
{{French Communist Party}}
{{SFIO}}
{{French Resistance}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Humanite}}
[[Category:1904 establishments in France]]
[[Category:French Communist Party]]
[[Category:Newspapers published in Paris]]
[[Category:Newspapers established in 1904]]
[[Category:Daily newspapers published in France]]
[[Category:Left-wing newspapers]]
[[Category:French-language communist newspapers]]
[[Category:Jean Jaurès]]