The Crackup

In the summer of 1944 the French Resistance press came out from, its underground print shops with ink on its hands and blood in its eye. In Paris and the provinces, squads of grim newsmen toting Tommy guns took over the Nazi-controlled newspaper plants and ousted the collaborationists. Almost overnight, the press of the nation was reborn.

Last week the French press was in another desperate fight for survival. In two months, one in seven of the country's 164 dailies had folded, including four out of ten Communist mouthpieces. In Paris, the Socialist Party's Le Populaire, its circulation down from 350,000 to 93,000, was publicly begging for funds. The M.R.P.'s L'Aube (down from 200,000 to 80,000) was living from week to week on party handouts. Said a panicky government official: "A general crackup ... is feared. We don't know how many papers will close or merge in the next few weeks."

What had brought on the disaster? One obvious cause: falling revenue and inflated costs had squeezed the profit out of the newspaper business. Ten years ago an eight-page paper sold for half a franc; today a four-pager costs 5 francs. And newsprint has gone from 2,500 francs a ton in 1939 ($62.76) to 35,000 ($114.63). Furthermore, the sins of the prewar press had been visited on the postwar press.

V for Venal. By U.S. standards, French journalism has always been nonobjective, cynical and, before the war, appallingly venal. Several influential national dailies (la grande presse) were potent enough to topple governments. But the French coined the ugly term la presse pourrie ("rotten press") for those that sold out to big business or to Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Balkan countries.

Most of the prewar press worked for the Nazis during the occupation. When they fled, the 1,000 "tainted" publications were seized and their sullied titles banned. Today no Paris paper may bear the name of Le Matin, Le Petit Parisien, Le Temps, L'Oeuvre or Paris-Soir, among others. Some 300 publishers have still to stand trial.

The Resistance pressmen who moved into the confiscated plants got help from the National Committee of Liberation. Each liberated Parisian daily got a 3,000,000-franc credit, enough newsprint for 50,000 copies a day.

But the underground newsmen were not schooled in cost accounting. There were few good editors,reporters and deskmen, and the laws of natural selection weeded out the unfit amateurs.

Going, Going . . . After the liberation of France, 34 Parisian dailies started up. Last week there were only 19 left (plus 170 weeklies). Most likely survivors of the present crisis: the mildly Socialist France-Soir* edited by hard-boiled Pierre Lazareff (TIME, June 23) and now France's biggest paper (circ. 641,000); the Communist Humanite; the Catholic Figaro, famed for its high literary standards; L'Aurore, which rides the De Gaulle bandwagon; the witty, leftist (but not quite Commie) Franc-Tireur; sober Le Monde, the businessman's bible; and Parisien Libere, favorite of the petit bourgeoisie.

The wobbly French press is no longer either powerful or corrupt. No foreign power can plant a campaign, for a price, in a French paper--except, of course, in L'Humanite, which sometimes reads as if it were edited in the Kremlin. Nor can government ministers phone editors, as they did before the war, and tell them what to print and what to kill.

White-haired Georges Cogniot, editor in chief of L'Humanite (circ. 450,000), insists that "the press is now venal in a different way from before the war. It still gets money from [big business] trusts, publicity or the government's secret funds." But the charge can neither be proved nor disproved. The government allots newsprint, pegs its price, and subsidizes the news service A.F.P. (which could not exist otherwise), but expression is free.

Yell Leaders. Both the "papers of opinion" and the "papers of information" make the most of that freedom. "We are Latins," boasts stocky Rene Naegelen, publisher of Le Populaire. "Our press, on aime que fa gueule--we like it to yell!" The press makes no secret of its prejudices; the slogans of political parties and factions are emblazoned on mastheads. "To be informed," said an American newsman in Paris, "the Parisian must read at least five or six dailies. He must be more sophisticated and analytical than American readers. But after stripping opinions from the facts, he not only knows the news, but also knows what the political parties think of it." (He is also out 25 or 30 francs, which helps account for the newsstand slump.) His alternatives (if he can read English): the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune (circ. 62,000), and the London Daily Mail's continental edition (45,000), the only real newspapers --by U.S. standards--in Paris.

Last week, in France-Soir's building on the Rue Reaumur, blond young (28) Publisher Aristide Blank made a hardheaded guess about the future of the French press; "An island of collectivism cannot exist in a sea of capitalism. The only possible press here is one based on solid commercial foundations. In a few months the entire face of the French press will change. Then there will be only very small papers of opinion, and very great papers of information. We are going in the direction of cartels of the press."

*Now running "Eva Braun's diary," whose dubious authenticity has kept all U.S. publishers from buying it.

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