Our anniversary event “80 years of Parisian, 80 headlines”
The very first issue of Le Parisien appeared on August 22, 1944, in the midst of the liberation of Paris. To celebrate this birthday, we have selected 80 historical or emblematic “headlines” of their time. Sport, news items, conquest of space, presidential elections, disappearances of stars… They tell the story of eight decades of current events. We have chosen to tell you behind the scenes. A series to discover until the end of the year.
Browse 80 years of news through the prism of womens rights and its treatment by Le Parisien is like leafing through a family album. There are photos that we would enlarge to highlight them, others that make us wrinkle our noses because we weren’t there to our best advantage. It is a salutary exercise during which we measure the path traveled by our newspaper which is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year.
In 2024, there is one observation that, ultimately, we should rejoice: the International Women’s Day, which occurs every year on March 8, has become a journalistic “chestnut tree”. That is to say, recurring news that cannot be ignored in the same way as the start of the school year. And yet, twenty years ago, in editorial offices, this was not the case.
On March 8, 2004, Le Parisien made a splash by pulling off a “coup”: it became La Parisienne for 24 hours and adapted its logo, which is extremely rare. Objective: to examine “under the microscope the wishes and desires of women today. Through, in particular, a gallery of portraits running in all the sections of this edition,” explains today’s front page. His title ? “What a woman wants…”
A Parisian charter feminizing the names of professions, titles and functions
On the inside pages, we smile when rereading the interview with Laura Flessel. The first Olympic champion swordswoman in history, in 1996, told us at the time: “ Mom and champion, it’s possible. » Possible but complicated, as we were able to describe subsequently, by numerous other testimonies from athletes who did not want to give up anything. Twenty years after this portrait, the national Olympic and Paralympic committees have just presented measurements in order to allow athletes, mothers but also fathers, to experience the Paris 2024 Games with their young children.
We stop, however, embarrassed by the description of the first deputy of the Paris town hall, highlighted in this edition: “ Anne Hidalgo, the seductress. That is, ten years before another headline from Le Parisien: “ Municipal: Anne Hidalgo becomes the first female mayor of Paris “. In this article from March 2014, she is “the” mayor of Paris. Since 2019, Le Parisien has adopted a charter feminizing the names of professions, titles and functions. A way to make the role of women in our society visible. From then on, she became “the” mayor of the capital in our pages.
That same year, for the first time, Le Parisien mentioned on its front page “ the author of a report”. A small revolution provoking, within the newspaper’s teams themselves, a heated debate that is hard to imagine today.
Our front page on the announcement of the major demonstration of November 23, 2019
Use the right words to evoke, in particular, the gender-based and sexual violence, even if much remains to be done, is a necessity that has arisen. The all too frequent “family dramas” and “crimes of passion” have given way to “marital murders” or “ feminicides “.
Of course, #MeToo went through there. Le Parisien relayed the shocking investigation of New York Times who revealed in October 2017 the sexual assaults committed by the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinsteinand its repercussions outside Californian borders, including in France.
If the first articles (explained in Fact of the day) denounce a “law of silence” affecting the victims, the expression “ freedom of speech » appears less than a week later in the analysis papers. Just like deciphering the influence of social networks in this societal revolution. At the same time, a reflection is also taking place internally with the creation of the Collectif des femmes du Parisien which campaigns against the low representation of women in our columns, as well as in key positions in the newspaper.
VIDEO. “Today we count our dead”: they fight against violence against women
A configuration that has an influence. Le Parisien is one of only two written press newspapers to make its front page on the announcement of the major demonstration against violence against womenon November 23, 2019: “How to put an end to femicide? » we asked ourselves, a few days before the conclusions of the first Grenelle on domestic violence.
In February 2021, it is Le Parisien which reveals the PPDA affair
But let us render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. It is an upheaval of which we have sometimes been on the front lines. With this Fact of the Day we were ahead of MeToo! can we be surprised after consulting the double page of June 2016: “ Sexual harassment: gentlemen, when you say no, you mean no! »
We have come a long way since this front page of November 19, 1990: “Flo, you’re a real guy! » It is in fact with this title, “which would no longer pass today”, insists Nicolas Charbonneau, editorial director, that Le Parisien had chosen to salute the exploit of the navigator Florence Arthaudfirst woman to win the Route du rhum.
In February 2021, it is Le Parisien who reveals thePPDA affair. He sports on the front page the testimony of Florence Porcelthe first accuser of Patrick Poivre d’Arvorformer star presenter of the TF 1 news, who will file a complaint for two rapes.
2021 is also the year when our newspaper acquires a vertical Sentinels on the website, exclusively dedicated to news of women’s struggles and rights. So of course, progress remains to be made but the treatment of gender discrimination has found its place in a general newspaper like Le Parisien and is no longer considered “a matter for good women”.
