Claude Perdriel (born 25 October 1926) is owner-manager of the Perdriel Group that publishes Sciences et Avenir, Challenges, Rue89 and during 1970–1980, the Paris daily Le Matin de Paris. It also published Le Nouvel Observateur from its foundation in 1964 to 2014 when it was sold to a group of investors that already published Le Monde.
Jules Vallès (11 June 1832 – 14 February 1885) was a French journalist, author, and left-wing political activist.
Serge July (born 27 December 1942) is a French journalist, editor, founder of the daily Libération, and a prominent figure in French politics from the 1970s through the 1990s. He is the author of several books and has directed more than fifty documentaries about cinema and politics. In recent times, he has been active in French organizations working in support of journalists taken hostage in Syria.
François Coty (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa kɔti]; born Joseph Marie François Spoturno, [ʒɔzɛf maʁi fʁɑ̃swa spɔtuʁno]; 3 May 1874 – 25 July 1934) was a French perfumer, businessman, newspaper publisher, politician and patron of the arts. He was the founder of the Coty perfume company, today a multinational. He is considered the founding father of the modern perfume industry.
In 1904, his first success, fragrance La Rose Jacqueminot launched his career. He soon started exporting perfumes from France, and by 1910 he had subsidiaries in Moscow, London and New York. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, his assets in Moscow, which consisted of stocks and funds were confiscated by the Soviet government, making him a lifelong enemy of Communism.
By the end of World War I, his financial success made him one of the richest men in France, allowing him to act as patron of the arts, collect works of art, historic homes and seek to play a political role.
In 1922, he gained control of daily newspaper Le Figaro. To check the growth of socialism and Communism in France, he founded two other daily papers in 1928.
In 1923 he was elected senator of Corsica, and was mayor of Ajaccio from 1931 to 1934.
Fearing the spread of communism, he subsidized various right-wing movements. In 1933, faced with a political class that he considered incapable, he published a reform of the State and founded his own movement Solidarité française, which became more radical after his death.
At the time of his death, at age 60, his fortune was greatly diminished as a result of his divorce, the high cost of running his press empire and the repercussions of the economic crisis of 1929.
Émilien Amaury (French pronunciation: [emiljɛ̃ amoʁi]; 5 March 1909, in Étampes, France – 2 January 1977, in Chantilly) was a French publishing magnate whose company now organises the Tour de France. He worked with Philippe Pétain, head of the French government in the southern half of France during the second world war but used his position to find paper and other materials for the French Resistance. His links with Jacques Goddet, the organiser of the Tour de France, led to a publishing empire that included the daily sports paper, L'Équipe. Amaury died after falling from his horse; his will led to six years of legal debate.