Havas, Agence. Founded—first as a modest translation bureau—by Charles Havas (1783-1858), the agency quickly achieved during the 1830s a dominant position. Either directly, or through subsidiary companies, Havas also became France's leading advertising agency. It supplied provincial newspapers with feature material—variétés, romans-feuilletons, etc.—as well as news and advertising copy. Between the two world wars it was increasingly attacked, by left-wing politicians such as Léon Blum, as one of the oligopolistic and capitalist forces responsible for the corruption of the press. In 1940 Pierre Laval ‘nationalized’ Havas-news, and created the official news agency, l'Office Français d'Information. In 1944 l'Agence France-Presse (AFP) began operations as part of the general reform of the press. Remaining separate from Havas, which continued as one of France's leading communications groups (being privatized in 1987), AFP became one of the world's three leading international news agencies.
[Michael Palmer]
