French Politics: Newspapers and Ambition 1943–1945

This chapter addresses the latter part of the war, using General de Gaulle’s resistance in London and Algiers as a case study that connects print communications with political contexts, including Nazi newspaper competition, and a range of press plurality in occupied France and Vichy. In addition, advertisements in the émigré newspaper France provide a perceived audience profile and a barometer for business confidence in London’s exiled press. An in-depth case study of General de Gaulle’s own newspaper La Marseillaise, produced in exile, analyses how he used it as a vehicle for political ambitions, but also the conflict with Britain and the United States that this conduct towards Churchill and Eisenhower provoked. The chapter reflects on the significance of the moment, the future, and the influence within the public domain that was represented by such forceful newspaper activity between 1943 and 1945.