Le Confédéré
Swiss newspaper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Le Confédéré, formerly Le Confédéré du Valais, is a Swiss French-language weekly newspaper. Established in Sion in 1861, it later moved operations to Martigny. It is the oldest newspaper published continuously in Valais. It has maintained a liberal political line since its inception, and primarily focuses on politics, regional news, and opinion journalism.
 | |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Berliner |
| Owner | Journal le Confédéré SA |
| Founded | 2 January 1861 |
| Language | French |
| City | Martigny |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Circulation | 1,500 (as of 2019) |
| OCLC number | 716162936 |
History
Le Confédéré was established in 1861, in Sion, Valais. Its first issue was printed 2 January 1861.[1][2][3] It was initially titled Le Confédéré du Valais.[3] It is the oldest newspaper published continuously in Valais; the Walliser Bote is older, but that paper was not published continuously.[4][5] It moved its operations to Martigny in 1894.[2]
From 1972 to 1976, its editor-in-chief was Pascal Couchepin, later the president of the Swiss Confederation.[5] Couchepin was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Adolphe Ribordy, who was editor-in-chief until 2008; Ribordy continued to write a weekly column for the paper until his death in 2021.[6]
In 2011, it celebrated its 150th anniversary.[3][7] With the anniversary, the entire collection of the paper was digitized and made available online, and a three volume set on the history of the paper was released.[7]
In 2018, facing financial problems due to declining advertising revenue and a shift towards digital media, as well as the bankruptcy of the media company Publicitas, the paper vacated its offices in Martigny and laid off its editor-in-chief, Jean-Jacques Michelet.[4][5][8] By 2020, it had managed to reestablish itself.[5]
Profile
It has close ties to The Liberals[4][9] and formerly served as the official mouthpiece of the Free Democratic Party of Valais until the 1970s.[2][7] It has a liberal-democratic political alignment, and was created as a liberal journal critical of the conservative government.[3][2][9] It primarily serves as a critical opinion journal,[4][2] though also focuses on news, primarily on Valais politics and regional news, but also the politics of Switzerland as a whole. It is owned by Journal le Confédéré SA.[5][7]
Le Confédéré is published weekly. It was established as a weekly paper, later moving to being a biweekly, and then a triweekly after 1920. For three years, from 1968 to 1971, it was a daily newspaper that was published alongside the Gazette de Lausanne.[2][7] It then returned to being a biweekly paper, and in 1995 returned to being a weekly paper, a publication schedule it has maintained since.[2][7] Households in Lower Valais occasionally receive the paper free of charge.[2]
The paper is available exclusively in print, and does not have an online edition.[5][8] It is printed in Monthey.[5] Its circulation was 3,500 in the late 1960s, 4,230 in 2000, 4,000 in 2011, and 1,500 in 2019.[2][5][7] In 2020, the newspaper changed from the A4 format to the Berliner format.[5]
