Between Cold War and Pop Culture: The First Manned Moon Landing in the French Media

France’s role as observer of the 1969 USA moon landing was special in two respects: On the one hand, the country pursued its own space plans soon after World War II, thus becoming the third ‘space nation’. Second, under de Gaulle in particular, France was keen to demonstrate its foreign policy independence—not least vis-à-vis the USA. In addition, France had a strong communist party, which mobilized around one-fifth of the electorate in the 1960s. Taken together, this led to coverage that closely followed Soviet as well as American progress in the ‘race to the moon’ throughout the 1960s. This article focuses on French coverage of the moon landing, situates it against the background of system competition between the USA and the USSR as well as technological progress, and finally places space travel in a pop-cultural context. The analysis focuses on press and television coverage, each of which set its own focus in dealing with the moon landing. In addition, it is shown that the range between enthusiasm for technology and radical skepticism about the usefulness of the new knowledge about the moon and the earth for humankind could hardly have been wider. The paper interprets the moon landing as the culmination of a lunar enthusiasm that soon gave way to a more sober view of the promise of space travel.