Claude Julien

Claude Julien (17 May 1925, Saint-Rome-de-Cernon (Aveyron, France) – 5 May 2005, Sauveterre-la-Lémance (Lot-et-Garonne, France)) was a French journalist. He joins the foreign department of French newspaper of record Le Monde in 1951. In 1973, he became editor-in-chief then director of Le Monde diplomatique.

Biography Of modest origins, Claude Julien was born in a large family in Saint-Rome de Cernon. His father was a railroad station manager and he was the ninth of thirteen children. He passes the Certificat d'études primaires in June 1937 and then the French National diploma in June 1940.

He was a militant for the French Young Christian Students (YCS) from 1937 and then for the Young Christian Workers. In 1942, during World War II, the YCS hires him to work in Lyon, where is the administration center for the Zone libre. He quickly follows to join the Resistance. At the time of the Liberation, in September 1944, with the assistance of officer Pierre Dunoyer de Segonzac, he founded the newspaper Debout (Standing Up or On Our Feet) in Castres, in accordance with the motto of the city.

In December 1946, the YCS sends him to the USA for a period of 20 months to help develop the movement in that country. He simultaneously takes courses in political science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (USA).

In January 1960, he publishes the first volume of his book Le nouveau Nouveau Monde (The new New World), "which constitutes an in-depth analysis of the contemporary US". The second volume is published in April 1960.

He writes La Révolution Cubaine (The Cuban Revolution) in 1961, which becomes the first book published in France dealing with this major event of Latin America's contemporary history. The book argues that, despite the USA not possessing colonies, they do, regardless, constitute an "Empire without borders". "It is nowadays the most powerful that history has ever known, by its manufacturing capacity (with 6% of the world's population, the USA account for 43% of the non-communist world's production), by its military power, by its catching dynamism and by the extension of its influence."

On the occasion of the American Revolution's bicentenary, he publishes Le Rêve et l'Histoire (The Dream of History, or, Two-hundred years of American history) and proceeds to be invited in the television talk-show Apostrophes March 19th of 1976.

In June 1980, the Society of Editors of the newspaper Le Monde elects four candidates, of which Claude Julien, to succeed director Jacques Fauvet. It was the first and last time this method of appointment was tried. At the term of a long process, Claude Julien is elected manager of the newspaper in April 1981. "Preaching economic austerity as much as editorial strictness, Claude Julien displeases a staff used to more generosity and flexibility."