Audience statistics don’t tell the whole story. In designing this report, we had more difficult questions in mind: How is our information received? Are they useful, individually or collectively? What impact can our editorial approach have on public debate? In a word: what is the real value of what we publish?
At La Croix, our line is clear: we value explanation, contextualization, keys to understanding. We refuse caricature and simplification, and favor a human and nuanced approach, particularly when the debate is polarized. This line is consistent with our fundamental values: pedagogy, hope and dialogue.
The time has come to measure the real effects of this approach. This report documents five categories of impacts (see below), through on-the-ground evidence and through the words of our readers themselves. This approach is that of a media which honestly seeks to measure its role. We do not claim to provide ready-made answers to the despair, helplessness or loss of meaning that many feel in a world in rapid transformation, sometimes incomprehensible and riddled with violence. But we believe that information, exercised with rigor and humanity, can contribute to connecting and regaining grip on reality. What we discovered fuels our demands.
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Our methodology
To document the impact of La Croix, we combined two complementary approaches: identifying examples of concrete effects of our articles on society, and questioning our readers about what reading the media changes in their way of seeing the world, understanding it and engaging with it.
Societal impact
To measure the collective footprint of our work, we have identified the concrete effects of some of our articles in 2025: citations in official reports, taken up by parliamentarians, institutions, associations, NGOs or colleagues, mentions in public documents. We also questioned our journalists as well as third-party organizations, and analyzed the many spontaneous reactions from our readers. This census does not claim to be exhaustive: it shows, through concrete and verifiable examples, how La Croix acts in society.
The individual impact
Further, we wanted to know if regular reading of The Cross changed the way our readers perceive the world and engage with it. To measure this, we launched the readers’ survey “Read La Croix… and after?” » from February 25 to March 6, 2026. Our sample includes 1,200 readers of our different media, who testify to their relationship to current events, their exchanges with those around them and their desire to act. This survey documents associations between media reading and certain behaviors, without however establishing causal links in the strict sense. These correlations are no less robust and consistent.
Our five types of impacts
Bringing hope to life
Instill confidence in the future and highlight perspectives despite difficulties to overcome discouragement, anger and fear.
Understanding and making Christians heard
Bring a Christian sensitivity that defends a humanist, tolerant and fraternal worldview, which sheds light on the major contemporary issues for believers and non-believers alike. Encourage dialogue between Church and society.
Promote dialogue and create connections
Promote openness to others and to difference, encourage readers to dialogue with mutual respect and to act together, in a world marked by polarization and withdrawal.
Strengthen the capacity to act
Allow readers to feel a real capacity for action and encourage them to get moving to contribute to the society they want to see happen: overcoming their feeling of powerlessness and thwarting the loss of meaning.
Influencing the debate and public decision
Assume choices in the treatment of current events and structure the way in which a subject is understood and taken up by the public and decision-makers, to enlighten and influence public decision-making.
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