Libération (affectionately known as Libé) is a French newspaper, founded in 1973 by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in Paris, in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968.

It is one of the three big quality national daily newspapers with a circulation of 158,100. It was also the first French daily newspaper to have a website.

The paper was initially run along non-hierarchical lines, with all staff – from the editor-in-chief to the janitor – receiving the same salary, but this later gave way to a normal set-up. In the early 1980s it began to take advertisements and allowed external bodies to have a stake in its financing, but continued to maintain a left-of-centre editorial stance.

Libération has a decidedly self-described progressive editorial line, generally supportive of causes such as anti-racism, feminism, workers' rights. According to co-founder and current director Serge July [1], Libé is a militant newspaper which, however, does not support any particular political party, acts as a counter-power, and generally has bad relations with both left-wing and right-wing administrations. According to a deputy editor of Libé, Jean-Michel Helwig, Libération, though not affiliated with any political party is, from its 1968 origin, naturally left-wing.[2] However, Libé's opinion pages (rebonds) publish views from many political standpoints.

Libé is known for its sometimes alternative points of views on cultural and social events. For instance, in addition to reports about crimes and other events, it also chronicles daily criminal trials, bringing in a more human vision of petty criminals. As Serge July puts it [3], "the equation of Libération consisted in combining counter-culture and political radicalism". Critics contend, however, that this radicalism has largely receded since the 1970s and that Libé is no longer a truly left-wing newspaper [4].

See also

• Le Monde, Le Figaro

External link

• Libération's WWW site