Pre–World War II was founded in 1904 by
Jean Jaurès, leader of the
French Socialist Party (PSF), which merged the following year in the
French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Jaurès also edited the paper until his assassination on 31 July 1914. When the SFIO split at the 1920
Tours Congress, the Communists took control of , which became the official organisation of the
French Communist Party (PCF), despite its socialist origins, while the SFIO retained control of the minor daily
Le Populaire. The PCF has published it ever since and owns 40% of the paper with the remaining shares held by staff, readers and "friends" of the paper. The paper is also sustained by the annual ''Fête de l'Humanité'', held in the working class suburbs of
Paris, at
Le Bourget, near
Aubervilliers, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the country. The fortunes of have fluctuated with those of the PCF. During the 1920s, when the PCF was politically isolated, it was kept in existence only by donations from Party members.
Louis Aragon started to write for in 1933, in the "news in brief" section. He later led
Les Lettres françaises, the paper's weekly literary supplement. With the formation of the
Popular Front in 1936, s circulation and status increased, and many leading French intellectuals wrote for it. was banned during World War II but continued publication secretly until the
liberation of Paris from German occupation in 1944.
After World War II The paper's status was highest in the years after
World War II, when the PCF was the dominant party of the French left and enjoyed a large circulation. After the death of
Joseph Stalin in 1953, the paper appeared with a black margin mourning the Soviet dictator. Since the 1980s, however, the PCF has been in decline, mostly due to the rise of the
Socialist Party, which took over large sections of PCF support; circulation and economic viability of have declined as well. Until 1990 the PCF and received regular subsidies from the
Soviet Union. According to the French authors
Victor Loupan and
Pierre Lorrain (fr), received free newsprint from Soviet sources.
Post–Soviet Union The fall of the Soviet Union and the continued decline of the PCF's electoral base produced a crisis for . Its circulation, more than 500,000 after the war, slumped to under 70,000. In 2001, after a decade of financial decline, the PCF sold 20% of the paper to a group of private investors led by the TV channel
TF1 (part of the
Bouygues group) and including
Hachette (
Lagardère Group). TF1 said its motive was "maintenance of media diversity." Despite the irony of a communist newspaper being rescued by private capital, some of which supported
right-wing politics, director
Patrick Le Hyaric described the sale as "a matter of life or death." Since 2001, there has been speculation that would cease as a daily newspaper. However, in contrast to most French newspapers, its publication has actually since increased to about 75,000.
After 2001 In 2006, the paper created a weekly edition, . The same year had a circulation of 52,800 copies. In 2008, it sold its headquarters due to financial problems and called for donations. More than €2 million had been donated by the end of 2008. In 2020, had a circulation of 39,522 copies. ==Fête de l'Humanité==