Free press and fanzines: the alternative press in France, from the 1960s to the present day
A real mass phenomenon, with its own codes, distribution networks and events on the fringes of mainstream culture, the alternative press remains little known in France.
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Appearing by the hundreds in the wake of May ’68 and the British and American counterculture, independent newspapers and sheets offer a young public the subjects that the “serious” press dismisses – pop and rock music, ecology, nuclear power, regionalist movements, sexuality, street entertainment, feminism, pacifism -, treated in an iconoclastic and radical tone. Charlie Hebdo, Actuel and Le Parapluie are the most successful and enduring flagships of an underground wave that was sweeping through a generation of baby-boomers who were building their own culture as an alternative to the dominant ideology.*
*text @ BNF : https://www.bnf.fr/fr/agenda/free-press-et-fanzines-la-presse-alternative-en-france-des-annees-1960-nos-jours