The newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre has come close to disappearance several times, but it is still there and is seeing its sales go up.
On April 18, 1973, a first issue of only four pages was sold at auction. 50 years after its creation, Release is no longer the extreme-left newspaper of its beginnings, launched by Maoists like Serge July and protesters in May 68, under the aegis of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
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The founders wanted to create a title made by and for the people. Without publicity or shareholders, and on the mode of self-management: the employees directed Freed and all received the same salary.
“The journal of all leftists”
At the time considered as a prism for social conflicts and the defense of the oppressed, with a benevolence displayed towards violent action and revolutionary terrorism, Release has a style that is not really journalistic. And everyone has their own opinion in the articles. Problem: the financial losses accumulate very quickly, and the editorial staff is torn between pursuing its militant collectivism or professionalizing the daily newspaper. It is the second solution which is chosen in 1981, at the cost of a brutal break with the partisans of the 1st way.
Freed stops appearing for three months, then returns with a new team, a new formula and a new political positioning turned towards the socialist left. “Today, we are the newspaper for all leftists. With a divide within the editorial staff: the youngest are more like LFI, the older ones are social democrats”confides the deputy editorial director, Alexandra Schwartzbrod, on franceinfo.
“I think that there are still anar or at least libertarian impulses to ‘Libé’ and so much the better!”adds Luc Le Vaillant, the head of the “portrait” department, a section that has become an institution of the newspaper.
Alexandra Schwartzbrod and Luc Le Vaillant are Célyne Baÿt-Darcourt’s media guests.