Quezi

The French Police wouldn't give me no peace (Flickr Commons NKCR)

The French people have an amazing history, a beautiful language, and a justifiable pride in their culture.  But they’ve done a surprisingly poor job of preserving these things in the form of French-language online newspaper archives.  Still, there are a few good sources to know about, from France and other French-speaking areas, such as Quebec in Canada.

Here are the best free newspaper archives from France and elsewhere:

FRANCE

French Newspaper Archives. A few newspapers from France are available from this site. Date coverage is not well described (quell suprise!), but seems to cover a good chunk of the 19th century, and the early 20th century.  The archives are browseable, but there is no full-text searching. Newspapers include Le Figaro, Le Temps, and Le Croix.

Mercure Francois, 1605-1643. A real oldie and a goodie. This is France’s oldest newspaper.

The Bulletin de l’Alliance Israelite Universelle 1860-1913 and Paix Et Droit 1921-1940 from France, two Jewish newspapers from the Historical Jewish Press collection.

LUXEMBOURG

Newspaper archives from Luxembourg, 1704-1940. There is a sporadic collection of newspapers, magazines and journals here, browseable by date. Some of the publications, like Luxemburger Illustrierte, are quite beautiful.

SWITZERLAND

Swiss newspaper archivess, 1826-1998. You’ll find the French-language Journal de Genève here, almost 200 years of it. This is a well-designed, easy to use archive.

CANADA

Quebec French and English Language Newspaper Archives, 1826-1978. Over a dozen papers here, browseable by date. Archive provided by the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec.

Multicultural Canada. There’s a little bit of a lot of things here, none of it well-described. Among the Indian, Chinese, and Arabic offerings, there are also some publications in French, such as L’Ami du Peuple.

Newfoundland & Labrador Maritime Newspaper Archives, 19th and 20th centuries. Two papers, the Twillington Sun (1884-1924) and French-language Le Gaboteur (1984-1995) are browseable by date, along with an assortment of other resources.

CARIBBEAN

Caribbean Newspaper Imaging Project, 1899-1979. There are many archives here, mostly in Spanaish, but some from Haiti in French. Site requires a free plug-in to view the actual newspaper pages.

MOROCCO

La Liberté (1915-1922) and L’Avenir Illustré (1926-1940) with some Arabic content, two Jewish newspapers from the Historical Jewish Press collection.

Au revoir!