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Paris Match ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}) is a French-language weekly gossip magazine. It covers major national and international news along with celebrity lifestyle features. Paris Match has been considered "one of the world's best outlets for photojournalism".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Its content quality was compared to the American magazine Life.<ref name="Independent2006">Template:Cite news</ref> Paris MatchTemplate:'s original slogan was "The weight of words, the shock of photos", which was changed to "Life is a true story" in 2008.<ref name="Figaro2008">Template:Cite news</ref> The magazine was sold by Lagardère to LVMH in 2024.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
History and profileEdit
A sports news magazine,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Match l'intran (a play on L'Intransigeant), was launched on 9 November 1926 by Léon Bailby. It was acquired by the Louis-Dreyfus group in 1931 and then by the industrialist Jean Prouvost<ref name=aud/> in 1938. Under Prouvost the magazine expanded its focus beyond sports, to a format reminiscent of Life: Le Match de la vie ("The Match of Life") and then Match, l'hebdomadaire de l'actualité mondiale ("Match, the weekly of world news"). Following the outbreak of World War II it became Match de la guerre ("Match of War") in October 1939. Selling for 2 francs a copy, it reached a circulation of 1.45 million by November. Publication was halted on 6 June 1940, during the Battle of France.
The magazine was relaunched in 1949 with a new name, Paris Match.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The magazine temporarily ceased publication between 18 May and 15 June 1968 upon the call for a strike by the Syndicat du Livre, the French printers' union.<ref name=aud>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In 1976, Daniel Filipacchi purchased the ailing Paris Match.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It continues to be one of France's most successful and influential magazines. It is published weekly and was until October 2024 part of Hachette Filipacchi Médias,<ref name=mor>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which is itself owned by the Lagardère Group.<ref>Madjar, Robert (1997). Daniel Filipacchi. Editions Michel Lafon.</ref>
On occasion, Paris Match has sold more than one million copies worldwide when covering major events, such as the first flight by a French astronaut, Patrick Baudry, aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle Discovery in June 1985. Benoît Clair, a senior writer for Paris Match, was the first journalist allowed to join the shuttle crew members from training until the departure for the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. A series of reports on the training was published in Paris Match on 22 April 1985, 17 June 1985 and 20 January 1986.<ref>Baudry, Patrick (1985). "Aujourd'hui le soleil se lève 16 fois" avec Benoit Clair. Editions Michel Lafon.</ref>
As of 1996 the magazine has adopted an independent political stance.<ref name=Humphreys1996/>
In February 2024, it was publicly disclosed that the luxury brand LVMH is in talks to purchase Paris Match from the media conglomerate Lagardère SA.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> LVMH purchased the magazine in October of 2024 for €120 million.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
CirculationEdit
Paris Match had a circulation of 1,800,000 copies in 1958.<ref name="Independent2006"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The 1988 circulation of the magazine was 873,000, making it the best-selling news weekly in the country.<ref name="Humphreys1996">Template:Cite book</ref> In 2001 the weekly was the tenth-largest-circulation news magazine worldwide, with a 630,000 sale.<ref name=mor/>
Paris Match had a circulation of 655,000 during the 2007–2008 period.<ref name="Figaro2008"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2009 the magazine was the best-selling photonews magazine in France, with a circulation of 611,000 copies.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Its circulation was 578,282 in 2014<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and 568,115 in 2020.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In popular cultureEdit
In Hergé's Tintin adventure The Castafiore Emerald (1963), reporters from the imaginary "Paris-Flash" magazine (a clear spoof on Paris Match, with a similar logo) play a major role in the plot's development. The magazine is satirized as sensationalist and inaccurate.