LAUSR

This article explores the interconnections between the media in France and the emergence of a Franco-British alliance on the eve of the Second World War, emphasizing how newspaper, radio and newsreel coverage helped mould British perceptions of France during the late 1930s. It will argue that British assessments of France, and thus France’s potential value as a wartime ally, were influenced greatly by the dominant representations furnished by the media. In 1936, such representations portrayed a polarized France unworthy of British support; by 1939, they depicted a strong and united country of inestimable value to Britain. This transformation was not simply fortuitous; by the late 1930s, French politicians, conscious of the deleterious effect that media representations of a divided France was having on their country’s prestige, endeavoured to transform the media from a symptom of decadence and malaise into a weapon of unity and strength.