Robert Hersant was a leader in the pro-Nazi youth movement during the Vichy wartime years, but after prison time built a major newspaper empire and engaged in conservative politics.
15 Facts About Robert Hersant
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Robert Hersant was the son of a captain in the merchant navy and showed early on an interest in school newspapers.
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Robert Hersant left this movement in October 1940, to become a member of the secretariat general de la jeunesse of the Vichy Regime.
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Robert Hersant was not affected in the first waves of the Epuration legale after liberation.
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Robert Hersant was arrested and jailed for one month in Fresnes on 15 June 1945.
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Robert Hersant was tried in 1947 and sentenced to 10 years of national indignity for collaboration with Nazi Germany.
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Robert Hersant was released through the general amnesties in 1947,1951 and 1953.
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Robert Hersant was elected with the support of French Section of the Workers' International and Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance.
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Robert Hersant advocated a partition of Algeria as a solution to the Algerian War.
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Robert Hersant then became a conservative supporting Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
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Robert Hersant gradually built his empire by buying or creating local or regional newspapers through his holding company Socpresse.
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Robert Hersant took control of various regional titles such as Le Courrier de l'Ouest, Nord Matin, Paris Normandie, Nord Eclair.
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In 1979, Robert Hersant launched Le Figaro-Magazine, a weekly supplement of Le Figaro, headed by Louis Pauwels.
14.
In 1983, Robert Hersant bought Le Dauphine Libere, in 1986, Le Progres de Lyon and l'Union de Reims, and in 1987 Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes.
15.
Robert Hersant's group was, in 1996, employing 8,000 persons, and generating a revenue of 6 billion French francs.