ten dates that marked the history of the newspaper

The left-wing daily Liberation celebrates its fiftieth anniversary on Tuesday, April 18, 2023. Fifty years of news, offbeat headlines, culture, general information, crises and commitment. On this occasion, the daily is offering a special 50-page issue that will remain on newsstands for three days. It includes in particular the restitution of a round table between the four directors of publications who have succeeded since the birth of the title: Serge July, Laurent Joffrin, Nicolas Demorand and Dov Alfon. La Croix looks back on ten dates that have marked the history of the newspaper.

► April 18, 1973: birth of the daily

Co-founded by Serge July, Jean-Paul Sartre, Philippe Gavi, Bernard Lallement and Jean-Claude Vernier, a first four-page issue of Liberation appeared on February 3, 1973. But that was the date of publication of the second, April 18, 1973 , which is remembered as the anniversary of the newspaper. The daily newspaper wants to be without publicity and without shareholder. A militant left-wing newspaper, imbued with post-May 68 values, Liberation was at the time run by its employees. Until 1981, all received a single salary and decisions were taken at a general meeting of employees.

► February 16, 1982: first pages of advertising

After a suspension of publication between February and May 1981 and a layoff plan, the first pages of advertisements appeared in the newspaper on February 16, 1982 – in disagreement with the first Liberation manifesto published in 1972. Serge July, then in head of the daily, will justify this choice by stating in an article in the daily that advertising has changed: “It is an art. We no longer really know where culture begins and where advertising ends. »

► September 17, 1981: The abolition of the death penalty makes headlines

Titled “Death penalty for the guillotine”, the front page of September 17, 1981 is a landmark. The daily newspaper has always paid particular attention to its front pages, which always give pride of place to photography and puns, when the subject lends itself to it. Some have been controversial, but many – like that of September 17, 1981 – have gone down in history.

Evidenced by the double-page photo the day after the attack of September 11, 2001 in New York simply marked with the date; the very sober design that illustrated the death of the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs; or even the “NO” written in capital letters and on a black background above the head of Jean-Marie Le Pen, on the occasion of his passage in the second round of the presidential election on April 22, 2002.

► September 26, 1994: A portrait on the last page

Since September 26, 1994, Liberation has reserved its last page, which is highly prized by advertisers, for a portrait. Thousands of names, from Bruce Willis to Léna Mahfouf via Françoise Sagan, have appeared on this page since its creation. Portraits always searched and anchored in the news. A peculiarity which has created between the readers of the newspaper an impossible debate: should we start reading from the beginning, or from the end?

► January 20, 2005: Édouard de Rothschild enters the capital

Still under the direction of Serge July, Édouard de Rothschild entered the capital of Liberation. He was accepted by the board of directors on January 20, 2005. But the climate deteriorated, the newspaper lost too much money, and the shareholder felt that he did not participate sufficiently in the decision-making process. In 2006, Édouard de Rothschild demanded the departure of Serge July, CEO, and Louis Dreyfus, Managing Director, who resigned.

► February 8, 2014: “We are a newspaper”

On February 6, 2014, the employees launched a 24-hour strike and demanded, for the third time, the departure of Nicolas Demorand. The radio man has been at the head of the editorial staff since 2011. The employees are opposed to the company’s diversification project, led in particular by the shareholder Bruno Ledoux, who wishes to create, among other things, a “Libé café”. An idea to which the employees respond on February 8, 2014 on the front page of the daily newspaper, titled “We are a newspaper. Not a restaurant, not a social network, not a cultural space, not a TV set, not a bar, not a start-up incubator…”. Nicolas Demorand announces his resignation on February 13, in an interview with Le Monde.

► January 8, 2015: The editorial staff of Charlie welcomed to the premises of Liberation

On January 8, 2015, after the attacks that targeted Charlie Hebdo the day before, Liberation welcomed the editorial staff to its premises so that it could continue its activities. Already in November 2011, the satirical weekly had taken up residence on the ground floor of the building on rue Béranger, after a fire ravaged Charlie’s premises. “Welcoming the bereaved editorial staff of the weekly was obvious, as the two newspapers share, despite dissonances, a common state of mind”, is it specified in the special 50th anniversary issue of Liberation.

► May 14, 2020: Liberation becomes a non-profit company

On May 14, 2020, Liberation is the first newspaper to become a non-profit company by integrating an endowment fund created by Altice media. The group, owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi, acquired Liberation in 2014.

► September 20, 2022: Kretinsky arrives as a savior

Although growing, Liberation is coming to the end of the twenty million euros left by Patrick Drahi in the endowment fund created in 2020. The newspaper is seeking, in July 2022, to raise 15 million euros to ensure its survival until a return to equilibrium announced for 2026. It is the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, via his CMI group, who finally comes to the rescue of the daily after two months of negotiations. On September 20, 2022, he lends 14 million euros to Liberation, without entering the capital.

► April 7, 2023: “50 years in the eye of Libé”

The daily celebrates its half-century with the release of a book: “50 years in the eye of Libé” (Ed. du Seuil, 2023). 340 pages of unpublished photo reports, mythical portraits of the newspaper, images taken since its birth and which have made its identity.

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