Down & Out in Paris

Up until World War II, the newspapers of Paris showed little interest in whether their stories were dug up or made up. These days, most of the papers honestly attempt to serve up fact instead of fantasy, and they are much better for the effort. But the irony of the situation is that despite their new sense of responsibility, the Paris papers are in serious trouble.

In the past year, only four of the 14 general Paris dailies have increased their circulations significantly, while most of the others lost thousands of readers. With costs continually rising, Parisian publishers are thinking of jacking prices up to 30 centimes (6-c-), even though the 5-centime boost would probably send sales tumbling even farther.

Party-Line Bore. One reason for the trend is an oversupply of papers. New York has trouble supporting seven general dailies--and Paris has twice that number with little more than half the population. Publishers can point out several other causes. Parisians who move to the suburbs and buy cars for commuting no longer pick up a paper to read on the Metro. Since the war the provincial press has boomed. And such party-lining metropolitan papers as the Communist L'Humanite, and La Nation, organ of Charles de Gaulle's U.N.R. Party, have become bores. Most damaging of all has been the spurt in radio and television news coverage. In the last decade the number of French television sets has grown 60-fold to 3,600,000.

The two biggest papers in France have been hit particularly hard. Paris press circles still buzz with rumors that the proud masthead slogan of first-ranked France Soir--"The Only French Daily Selling Over 1,000,000"--may not always be true. The city's second biggest daily, Le Parisien Libere, has cut back its press run some 5%. France-Soir's sister publication, Paris-Presse, has lost 5% of its circulation, and last month dropped 20 of its 90 editorial staffers.

The few dailies that have succeeded in bucking the general decline offer lessons that the rest of Paris' papers are studying with interest. La Croix, a Catholic paper with 117,000 circulation, jumped sharply because of its coverage of the Ecumenical Council. While third-ranked Le Figaro held its own at 409,000 with its sober, comprehensive reporting, fourth-ranked L'Aurore trained its sights on a specific audience--the returnees from Algeria--and managed to boost circulation to 390,110. At Le Monde (193,017), austere Editor Hubert Beuve-Mery, 61, immerses his readers in a sea of small type without so much as a single photograph to cling to. But he has also made his paper must reading by virtue of penetrating, if plodding, political reportage. The greatest success story has been scored by a fresh, energetic morning tabloid called Paris-Jour, which sells 185,000 copies by heeding the dictum of Owner Cino del Duca: "Don't preach down to people."

Charlie Did It. Alarmed that TV and specialized journals will eventually squeeze out several of the already struggling general dailies, publishers are nervously taking stock. "TV being essentially a spectacle," says France-Soir President Robert Salmon, "the press should become more and more explanatory, not only giving the news but explaining it." France-Soir's diminutive (5 ft. 2 in.) Editor Pierre Lazareff, 55, has set up a study group to chart new ways to lure back readers, is planning to bring out a remodeled paper soon with the same appearance but a greater depth and variety of coverage and "a new tone which will be saisissant." Parisien Libere is experimenting with special suburban editions to combat burgeoning local dailies. To reduce the temptation of payola for Paris reporters (average salary: $300 a month), the publishers have approved pay increases up to 20%.

But Leftist Editor Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, whose weekly L'Express has been having its own circulation troubles since the end of the Algerian war deprived it of its major issue, doubts that any of these measures will halt the downtrend. The problem, says he, is neither TV, nor slanted reporting, nor a glut of papers, but the fact that Charles de Gaulle has hobbled political parties. "Gaullist France is not interested in national affairs," said Servan-Schreiber, a longtime anti-Gaul-list, who might have a telling point here. "People know that De Gaulle makes his own decisions, and no one else in the country has anything to say about them. There is no debate. There is no need to get the news."

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