''Combat'' was a French
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
created during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. It was founded in 1941 as a
clandestine newspaper of the French Resistance.
War years
In August 1944, ''Combat'' took over the headquarters of ''
L'Intransigeant'' in Paris, and
Albert Camus
Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...
became its
editor in chief
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies.
The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
. The newspaper's production run decreased from 185,000 copies in January 1945 to 150,000 in August of the same year: it did not attain the circulation of other established newspapers (the Communist daily ''
L'Humanité
''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist."
History and profile
Pre-World Wa ...
'' was publishing at the time 500,000 copies).
Liberation
Following the liberation, the main participants in the publication included
Albert Ollivier,
Jean-Paul de Dadelsen,
Jean Bloch-Michel (1912–1987), and
Georges Altschuler (fr). Among leading contributors were
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lite ...
,
André Malraux
Georges André Malraux ( , ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and Minister of Culture (France), minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Go ...
,
Emmanuel Mounier
Emmanuel Mounier (; ; 1 April 1905 – 22 March 1950) was a French philosopher, theologian, teacher and essayist.
Biography
Mounier was the guiding spirit in the French personalist movement, and founder and director of ''Esprit'', the magazine w ...
,
Raymond Aron
Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
Aron is best known for his 19 ...
and
Pierre Herbart. From 1943 to 1947, its editor-in-chief was
Albert Camus
Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...
.
[J. Levi-Valensi (ed), ''Camus at Combat'' Princeton University Press, 2006] Its production was directed by
André Bollier until
Milice
The ''Milice française'' (French Militia), generally called ''la Milice'' (literally ''the militia'') (), was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy regime (with German aid) to help fight against the Fre ...
repression led to his death.
Post-war
During 1946, ''Combat'' was opposed to the "game of the parties" claiming to rebuild France, and thus became closer to
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...
without, however, becoming the official voice of his movement.
Loyal to its origins, ''Combat'' tried to become the place of expression for those who believed in creating a popular non-Communist
Left
Left may refer to:
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* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album '' Curb'', 1996
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* ...
movement in France. In July 1948 (more than a year after the May 1947 crisis and the expulsion of the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
(ministers) from the government),
Victor Fay
The name Victor or Viktor may refer to:
* Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname
Arts and entertainment
Film
* ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film
* ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
(de), a
Marxist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
activist, took over ''Combat''s direction, but he failed to stop the newspaper's evolution towards more popular subjects and less political information.
In 1950, it hosted a debate about the
Notre-Dame Affair stimulated by a vehement letter by
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first '' Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...
in response to the editor
Louis Pauwels.
[Myriam Boucharenc (2005]
''L'universel reportage''
pp. 94-6
Philippe Tesson
Philippe Tesson (1 March 1928 – 1 February 2023) was a French journalist and television columnist who primarily focused on theatre. In 1974, he founded the newspaper '' Le Quotidien de Paris'', of which he was the owner and director of publicat ...
(fr) became editor in chief from 1960 to 1974.
Henri Smadja
Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry.
People with this given name
; French noblemen
:'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.''
* Henri I de Mon ...
(fr) had thought Tesson could be a perfect puppet-editor but Smadja's situation, in part because of the
Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
n regime, got worse. In March 1974, Philippe Tesson created ''
Le Quotidien de Paris
''Le Quotidien de Paris'' was a French newspaper founded in 1974 by . Along with ' and ', ''Le Quotidien de Paris'' made up the (Daily Press Group) which employed over 550 individuals," Philippe Tesson : « Mes trois critères d'appréciation » " ...
'' (1974–1996), which he had conceived as the successor of ''Combat''.
May 1968
During the
May 1968 crisis, ''Combat'' supported the student movement although from a
Stalinist
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
point of view, through the signatures of the likes of
Jacques-Arnaud Penent (fr). On 3 June, it published a falsified version of the ''Address to All Workers'' by the
Council for Maintaining the Occupations
The Council for Maintaining the Occupations (french: Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations), or CMDO, was a revolutionary committee formed during the May 1968 events in France originating in the Sorbonne.René Viénet (1968) The "Council for Ma ...
, removing the references to the
Situationist International
The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...
and the attacks against the Stalinists.
Dissolution
Henri Smadja died by suicide on 14 July 1974, and ''Combat'' definitively ceased to be published the following month.
See also
*
France in the twentieth century
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area e ...
*
Fourth Republic (1946–1958)
References
External links
''Combat''issues (1941–1944 only) online in
Gallica, the digital library of the
BnF
Albert Camus' editorialon 8 August 1945 concerning the
Hiroshima bombing
The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Combat (Newspaper)
1974 disestablishments in France
Publications disestablished in 1974
Defunct newspapers published in France
French resistance publications
Contemporary French history
Underground press in World War II
Daily newspapers published in France