Abstract

Founded in 1953 by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber and Françoise Giroud, L’Express was a politically committed outlet predominantly led by Giroud’s strong editorial direction until its rebranding in 1964 along the lines of Time magazine. Its goals were clear: to encourage modernization in French cultural and economic life, to support Pierre Mendès France and to oppose the war in Indochina. This article investigates Giroud’s vision of the press, her politics and her journalistic dialogue with other significant actors at a complex and pivotal juncture in French Cold War history. Giroud opened up the columns of L’Express to a diverse range of leading writers and intellectuals, even to those in disagreement with the publication, as the case study of Jean-Paul Sartre highlighted here shows. In so doing, Giroud’s L’Express constituted a singularly powerful press platform in Cold War France.

Highlights

  • Founded in 1953 by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber and Françoise Giroud, L’Express was a politically committed outlet predominantly led by Giroud’s strong editorial direction until its rebranding in 1964 along the lines of Time magazine

  • The self-styled ‘gens de maintenant’[2] used L’Express as a platform to wake up ‘la France [qui] dort’[3] and press their programme of liberal, capitalist modernization and decolonization and, as Pierre Mendès France was the politician connected with these two aims, they channelled their energies into his election as Président du Conseil

  • L’Express settled on Mendès France as he was broadly sympathetic to a the creation of a mass consumer economy even if he was at heart a believer in state regulation and planning and at some distance from the liberal economics espoused by Rostow and other Anglo-American economists

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Summary

Introduction

Founded in 1953 by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber and Françoise Giroud, L’Express was a politically committed outlet predominantly led by Giroud’s strong editorial direction until its rebranding in 1964 along the lines of Time magazine.

Results
Conclusion

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