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Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber — news, coverage & facts — IJR

L'Express

Servan-Schreiber was among the first to recognize the inevitability of decolonization, writing a series of articles on the Indo-Chinese conflict. This led to his meeting the future Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France, at that time a dedicated opponent of the French military effort in Indo-China. In 1953 Servan-Schreiber co-founded (with Françoise Giroud) the weekly L'Express, initially published as a Saturday supplement to the family-owned newspaper Les Échos. On the magazine's open agenda was the elevation of Mendès-France to power. Due to government seizures and censorship, the magazine quickly enchanted both the youth and the most prominent intellectuals of the 1950s and 1960s with its innovations. Among its contributors were Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux and François Mauriac. During Mendès-France's pivotal eight-month term as Council President (the formal title for the Prime Minister during the Fourth Republic), JJSS served him as a shadow councilor.

Servan-Schreiber was conscripted to Algeria in 1956 – to still his dissent, says Giroud. Drawing on his experiences there, he published his first book, "Lieutenant en Algérie". Its account of the brutality of French repression caused a controversy over its alleged deleterious effect on the army's morale. L'Express ran excerpts from the book.

Servan-Schreiber opposed General De Gaulle's return to power in 1958. However, De Gaulle was successful, and the influence of L'Express began to wane. In the same period, JJSS experienced other upsets. His family lost control of Les Échos; he split politically with Mendès-France; he divorced his first wife, and separated from Françoise Giroud, his mistress since the early 1950s, in order to marry Sabine Becq de Fouquières, who would become the mother of his four sons David, Émile, Franklin, and Édouard.

In 1964 following a study which he commissioned from his brother Jean-Louis, JJSS transformed L'Express into a weekly news magazine patterned after TIME. L'Express soared in popularity once again. It broadened its coverage to such subjects as new technologies and women's liberation. It became a mirror of the changing French society.

Political career

General De Gaulle's resignation in 1969 persuaded Servan-Schreiber to try his hand at politics. In October 1969, he became secretary-general of the Radical Party. He helped to reform the party, writing its manifesto, and became its president in 1971. After the splitting away of the left-wing Radicals, who formed the Left Radical Party (PRG), Servan-Schreiber became the president of the center-right Parti radical valoisien. He was elected Deputy of Nancy in 1970, but, later on the same year, he made the surprise decision to run against Jacques Chaban-Delmas in Bordeaux. He was soundly defeated, which tarnished his image. He served several terms or partial terms in the French National Assembly, and was Minister for Reform in 1974 but, being opposed to nuclear tests, he was prompted to resign after three weeks by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. He was elected in 1976 as President of the regional council of Lorraine, defeating Pierre Messmer.

During his political career, he frequently waged progressive campaigns against the current of a sociologically conservative France. He advocated decentralization through regionalization; reallocation of resources from the Concorde program to the Airbus; an end to nuclear testing; reform of the grandes écoles; and computerization. He refused to cooperate with Georges Marchais's Communist Party. He seemed unable to play political power games. His centrist strategy was never successful and eventually brought down his party.

Wanting to extricate himself from the daily management of L'Express, he sold it to financier Jimmy Goldsmith in 1977. Deprived of its power base, his political career quickly deteriorated. He lost his Assembly seat in 1978. He left the party in 1979 at the time of the first direct European elections, to present a list of candidates under the slogan Emploi, Égalité, Europe (Employment, Equality, Europe) with Giroud. The list won only 1.84% of the votes, and Servan-Schreiber decided to retire from political life.