The Press: French Fusion

As in New York, the number of newspapers in Paris has steadily dwindled over the years. Since 1948, seven daily newspapers have gone out of business. Last week an eighth folded.

Despite the efforts of the government to prevent it, the pro-Gaullist Paris-Presse merged with France's biggest newspaper, France-Soir. In a novel arrangement, one edition a day of France-Soir will be tucked into a jacket of half a dozen pages of Paris-Presse. "We decided to make the most intelligent fusion we could," says Pierre Lazareff, director general of France-Soir, "with each paper keeping its personality."

That is putting the best face on it. Actually, the circulation of Paris-Presse had dropped from a high of 450,000 in 1947 to 70,000 last year. Hachette, the powerful publishing house that owns both newspapers, was distressed over a loss of $800,000 in 1964 by Paris-Presse alone. Moreover, the Paris-Presse payroll was padded with all sorts of pleasant cousins and friends who never did a lick of work. At the news that a lot of these ardent Gaullists would come over to their paper, twelve top France-Soir staffers resigned in a huff.

As Paris-Presse goes, so has gone much of the French press. In spite of a rising population, the number of papers in France has declined from 230 in 1938 to 82 today. While there are no brand-name commercials on the Government-controlled television, magazines absorb 60% of the nation's advertising. And even in politically keen France, the new generation is snowing little interest in political news; they find far more excitement on the highways or the beaches than in reading another De Gaulle speech.