Publishers: France’s Giant

Each day in Paris, three cargo planes laden with newspapers leave Orly Airport to scatter their cargo across France. On the ground, six trains, 350 cars, 211 motorcycles and 400 bicycles mobilize all over the country for much the same mission. All the carriers have something else in common besides their freight. They are rolling for a French publishing house called Hachette.

Just about the only important French printed matter that Hachette does not distribute is the telephone book. The company moves all but two of Paris’ 26 daily newspapers, 612 French magazines, every newspaper and magazine exported to France from other countries. But this function, conducted under the impressive title of Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Parisienne, is only a sideline. Hachette is far bigger and far more pervasive than that.

As Librairie Hachette, it is France’s largest book publisher—55 million volumes a year. Hachette owns more newspapers than any other chain: five with a combined circulation of some 4,000,000. Hachette is also France’s top publisher of periodicals, with 15 magazines—some jointly owned with other publishers—and a circulation of some 5,000,000.

And even this list does not exhaust Hachette’s properties, nor its claims to dominance. Brodard et Taupin, France’s largest printing house, is a Hachette subsidiary. Hachette has links with two advertising agencies, Havas and Publicis. It owns a mill that makes coated paper, has a majority interest in a company that binds books and manufactures stationery, and in another that produces textbooks and school supplies. It controls one company producing TV programs and owns another. It owns a bank. It operates all 1,217 news kiosks in Paris’ Métro, railroad stations and airports. And it has branches in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Egypt, Monaco, Morocco, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the U.S.

Virtual Monopoly. The French giant began life in 1826 as a bookstore opened by one Louis Hachette at No. 12 Rue Pierre-Sarrazin in Paris’ Latin Quarter. Louis Hachette died in 1864, a substantial success. The site of his bookstore is now surrounded by eight buildings erected by his descendants.

Until World War II, the house of Hachette was content mostly to publish books. But its distribution system had already proved useful in delivering the Paris press. And when the war ended it was inevitable that the dailies, after unsuccessfully trying to distribute on their own, should turn again to Hachette. Soon Hachette was delivering 80% of all newspapers. This virtual monopoly may have encouraged Hachette to get into newspapering on its own. Today it overshadows Paris’ afternoon newspaper field, with France-Soir (circ 1,350,000), and Paris-Presse (150,000), Hachette also publishes three Paris weeklies, ranging in size from France-Dimanche’s 1,400,000 to Le Nouveau Candide’s 135,000.

Pinning the Blame. By its sheer size Hachette has given wing to the suspicions that its grand design includes a monopoly of everything printed in France. Detractors say that such independent newspapers as Le Figaro and L’Aurore, which have formed their own distribution apparatus, are allowed to do so largely because Hachette fears the political repercussions involved in any attempt to squeeze them out.

Hachette has exerted no depressing influence on the quality of the French press, which has detectably improved since the venal prewar period when the news columns of nearly any paper could be bought. It has been argued that Hachette’s omnipresence discourages the rise of new papers. But it is not easy to pin the blame on Hachette. While it is true that newspaper circulation has declined since the war—by 2,000,000 in Paris and a like amount in the provinces—there are many contributing reasons: TV, the new emphasis on leisure pursuits, and even Charles de Gaulle, whose stability in office has helped diminish discussion of political affairs.

Nonsense! “It is nonsense to say Hachette has prevented anyone from creating a newspaper,” says Robert Meunier du Houssoy, 75, president of the company and great-grandson of Founder Hachette. “Why don’t other people just go ahead and found one?”

But the house of Hachette only grows larger. Its gross volume of $283 million makes it one of the country’s biggest businesses. Last month France’s largest sports daily, L’Equipe (circ. 300,000), decided to give its monthly magazine Sport & Vie a new name—Vive les Vacances!—and itself a new partner: Hachette. And last week Hachette added two new names to its list of magazines: Caroline, an illustrated weekly for young girls, and Colibri (Hummingbird), a puzzle, game and picture book for children of 5 to 9.