I’ll try to develop another day but yeah, maybe, depends how you count (circulation data), what you include etc. General news & current issues mags and the regional press may be a bit weak in the UK in circulation terms but tabloids are in rude health, selling many millions of copies a day (cheap and full of ads as you will know).
One thing that is different in France compared to the UK (and probably many other countries), I don’t know if you’re aware of it, is that the French press & media sector in general (TV channels, radio stations etc. but it’s mostly the press) receive substantial help from the State: nearly €1 billion every year (they got an extra €485m last year because of the pandemic).
That help comes in a wide variety of ways: preferential postal rates, reduced fares for a few things such as VAT and distribution costs, tax rebates, direct subsidies, investment help, investment / modernisation / digitalisation grants etc.
For instance, your regional and local papers, so in your case, Ouest France, Le Télégramme and Le Trégor will all receive subsidies, tax rebates, postal subsidies (preferential postal fares) etc. The postal & distribution subsidy for the press (€500 million a year) in particular is instrumental in keeping all these newspapers alive as otherwise it’d be tricky for many, esp. the small ones of course, France being very rural transportation & acheminement costs would just be that bit too high for many to survive and develop.
This site and this one for instance inform us that in 2015 Ouest France received over €4 million in direct subsidies, Le Télégramme €1.3 million and Le Trégor about €15,000. Newspapers also sometimes receive (smaller) subsidies from the municipality or/and the department, it’s rare but it happens.
This system of state aids for the French press goes back to the French Revolution. It was set up in 1796 and gradually developed. First, it was solely focused on giving newspapers preferential postal tariffs. In the mid-1790s for instance, Paris alone had over 100 newspapers. Many had a low circulation as the printing technology was costly and basic but some sold in the thousands. Every single day then 100,000 copies would leave Paris for the province – read mostly by the bourgeoisie/the local elite as newspapers/gazettes etc. were expensive, literacy rates were low and French wasn’t widely spoken & read throughout the country, as there were over 400 regional languages & dialects – via a subscription service, and that’s where the postal subsidies came in, to make it affordable otherwise only a handful of people could have afforded them. Gradually, newspapers became more affordable thanks to those subsidies.
That subsidy system was first set up to ensure plurality in the press, the authorities (The Directoire, then) were keen to offer as wide a choice as possible. However, the post-revolution era was not a linear process and throughout the 1800s and up until the creation of the Third Republic (1870-1940) – the era which, in a nutshell, laid the markers of democracy in France – censorship would be rife as the monarchy was restored until 1848, followed by 22 years of the autocratic regime of Napoléon III. In 1881, with France a parliamentary republic since 1870 and the demise of Napoléon III following the Franco-Prussian War, the seminal law on freedom of the press was passed).
Over 400 newspapers and mags benefited from state help last year (for a total cost of €840 million, + extra help because of the pandemic as I wrote).
But while these subsidies are mainly welcomed by the general public for regional & local papers, there are roughly two issues here. First, it hacks off some people that notoriously unprofitable newspapers, such as the Communist daily L’Humanité for instance, are artificially propped up by the tax-payer. And secondly,
it rankles with many people that big groups also benefit from state help, such as the many national papers & mags that belong to billionaires or massive groups, that’s where these subsidies become more debatable and controversial.
For instance, publications such as Le Monde , Le Point , Le Figaro, L’Équipe, L’Express etc. receive state help and are all owned by billionaires or massive conglomerates (such as the LVHM luxury group, which own Les Échos & Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France , its CEO is the “centibilionaire” Bernard Arnault).
See this table below for instance, a “who’s who of who owns what” (it’s 4 year old though so a few things are incorrect – both Olivier Dassault and Serge Dassault are dead for instance although the Dassault Group still owns Le Figaro; Drahi doesn’t own Libération anymore etc. but you get the gist: it highlights why the subventions for a chunk of the national press are seen as controversial).
