Who has never succumbed to the summer gossip that we are on the beach with feigned irony? For a long time, people magazines prospered on the private life of “personalities”, before seeing their successes erode. Just between 2021 and 2024, the distribution paid in France of the weekly here has dropped from nearly 206,000 copies to around 145,000, according to the alliance for the press and the media figures (ACPM). Of course, the structural crisis of the paper press continues its undermining work. But the infidelities supposed to Roland-Garros and the bodies of our stars subject to “terrible incurable diseases” still fascinate?
At France Sunday and here Paris, two dinosaurs of the environment (detained by CMI France, the press group of the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský), we recognize the difficulties. “The situation is complicatedblows the director of the two editors, Stéphanie Eschenlohr. We hold the bar, but for how long? We increase the price of the magazine slowly but surely. ” In 2024, sales of the two weekly tumbled over 11%. Ironically, the decline of the celebrity press is the result of a historical process, a Rise and Fall Story (“Greatness and decadence”, in French), of which its pages usually love.
From connivance to scandals
The title France Sunday is an example of this trajectory. Founded ten years earlier, the weekly abandoned general information in 1956, to deal exclusively from the privacy of celebrities. Inspired by British tabloids, France on Sunday, the good blow and broke records, until they are proud to sell 1.3 million copies in the early 1960s. It’s time to “The Sacred Alliance” Between the stars and the dedicated press, traces Stéphanie Eschenlohr, who is also the niece of Claude François. “During the yéyé period, the stars worked with us. We mounted blankets with Johnny and the others. It was an exchange of good processes. Our readership was their audience: it was a way to speak to them. ”
In addition to fans, the general public discovers the flavors of these intimate chronicles, where glamor rubs shoulders with the trivial. “This press is in tune with our own gossip logicAnalysis Yannick Duvauchelle, associate researcher in the Mesopolhis laboratory (Mediterranean center of sociology, political science and history). We take news from our loved ones, judge if their way of life complies with the normative standards of our society. This logic has been transposed to personalities that everyone knows. This partly explained the success of the celebrity press. ”
The state of grace will not last. A new generation of artists-Bruelle, Jean-Jacques Goldman and others-emerges and taste little on the indiscretions of a press which we start to say that it is “with scandal”. For public opinion, a point of non-return is reached with the fatal accident of Princess Diana under the Alma bridge in Paris in 1997. On the spot, photographers flashed the carcass of the Mercedes and will be held for a time responsible for the death of the Princess of Wales. “We have become the bad guys in history, because of the paparazzi”Grins Stéphanie Eschenlohr.
It seems at the origin of the word, thus nursing a character in his film Dolce Vita (1960), Italian director Roberto Fellini would have synthesized the unscrupulous vampirism of these new reporters with the word paparazzo -Or paparazzi in the plural in Italian – for the contraction of words pappataci (small mosquitoes from the Pô plain) and ragazzi (boys) or raid (flash lightning).
Paparazzade in a dead end
Every morning, “The King of Paparazzi” swallows a hearty breakfast at table n ° 4 of the Flore coffee, in the Cossu VIe District of Paris. Pascal Rostain, white shirt and gold signet ring, brassness on his bourgeois habits: “I come there because coffee is very expensive.” The photographer also knows that rumors are circulating on the red benches in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district, where writers, publishers and pubards intersect.
In semi-planque, therefore, he tells the great era of the stolen photo. Pascal Rostain was a cunning, much expected, sometimes disguised herself, but above all trusted his high star. In 2002, during the G8 summit located in the Canadian rocks, he infiltrated for two days in the hotel of heads of state and grapeshot George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair. In New York, he immortalizes the affair of Cécilia Sarkozy and Richard Attias. His photo of Stéphanie de Monaco Topless in Mauritius? He gives it up to “Price of a Ferrari” to Italian magazine November 2000.
Even if Pascal Rostain swears “That he didn’t say his last word”his oldest and best hideout-a direct observation post on the office of the President of the Republic, he says, photos in support-has just been discovered by the Élysée. A sign of time? Paparazzi methods Old School are over? “At the time, we made a lot of money. We sold an exclusivity in Paris Match, then the following week we sold it to another duck and so on. Today, everything is on the internet. We fly the photo that circulates everywhere. Who wants to stay fifteen hours in a submarine in front of a building door for that? ”compares the photographer.
The celebrity press is no longer the intermediary that it was
The juicy economic model of the celebrity press was indeed upset by the explosion of amateur photographers. “Anyone can draw their phone and have a scoop. This is the climb of snaparazzi (contraction of “To snap”sear on the fly) and paparazzi, editor’s note). It participated in breaking the price of photos on the market. The big paparazzi are still there, but they are no longer the kings of the world ”judge Jamil Dakhlia, professor of information and communication sciences at Sorbonne-Nouvelle-Paris 3 University. And the sector must now deal with social networks, where personalities themselves postpone the limits of their secret garden.
“It was a completely unprecedented risk taking. Because the recession of sales had started, we had to go further. In a way, it was a swan song. “
At the trailer of these online content, the celebrity press is no longer the intermediary that it was previously. She gives more in the commentary of these life scenes of which she no longer has the monopoly. Marion Alobert, editor -in -chief of here, tempers: “Social networks are like a nice report in Paris Match with the breakfast set and well -combed children. We show the real life of people. “ The title of the Prisma Media group – derived by Vincent Bolloré – claims to have taken the digital fold. “The brand is also developing thanks to social networks. The algorithms highlight our expertise in the face of the fake news that circulates everywhere ”she continues.
If the formula changes little, the magazine works with new materials. The legal setbacks of Pierre Palmade, Stéphane Plaza or Gérard Depardieu are now covered by reporters. The progressive judicialization of sexual violence has a lot to do with it. And the debates playing there interest his readership, mainly female, underlines Marion Alobert. The People press must also mourn its “sacred monsters”-Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Johnny Hallyday, etc.-which go out one by one. The gallery of characters, which was keeping aging readers in suspense, is falling.
Recently, the sensation press has distinguished itself more by its sense of intrigue about inheritances than for its scoops. You even have to go back for a last big shine. It was in January 2014: Closer magazine released a bomb by revealing the relationship between President François Hollande and actress Julie Gayet. “It was a completely unique risk takingrecalls Jamil Dakhlia. Never has a People magazine been so disrespectful with a political figure. Precisely because the recession of sales had started, it was necessary to go further, to be more transgressive to reconnect with the editorial success. In a way, it was a swan song. “
