Le Courrier Australien: a Short History
The Courrier Australien has been in existence continuously since the end of the nineteenth century. Its first issue appeared on 30 April 1892. It had a subtitle: “A Cosmopolitan Newspaper appearing on
Saturdays. Politics, Literature, Science, Arts, Commerce, Fashion, etc.” The new weekly was the brainchild of a Francophile Polish nobleman, Charles Jean de Wroblewski. He had been recruited by the New South Wales Government in 1885 as an analytical chemist. Six years later he married Daisy Serisier, daughter of French pioneer Jean Emile de Bouillon-Serisier, one of the founders of Dubbo.
Under Wroblewski the Courrier Australien saw itself as a French- language Australian paper, French being seen as a means of gaining access to the cosmopolitan culture of Europe. Its main objective was cultural mediation. Until 1898 this multicultural policy as defined by the paper’s founder was followed more or less closely by its successive editors. There seems to have been an above-average staff turnover and address changes over those first few years. In October 1897 the new editor, F.O. Cailliau, replaced the “cosmopolitan” subtitle by a no doubt unauthorised reference to the “French Republic”. Cailliau’s tenure lasted only six months, a period during which the Courrier adopted an aggressively chauvinistic and often anti-Australian tone. Wroblewski, who was now interested in other, probably more lucrative, commercial ventures, had lost control of the paper’s editorial policy.
In August 1898, realizing how harmful the effects of Cailliau’s nationalistic bias were for the Sydney French community, some local notables, in consultation with Consul General Georges Biard d’Aunet, decided to buy out Wroblewski and take over the control of the Courrier. The paper was to be managed by a company with limited liability, governed by local legislation. Its office remained in the Bond Street Chambers (2 Bond Street) where it had been located since 1896 together with the French Consulate General and other French associations. The Courrier was to stay at 2 Bond Street for two decades, before moving to no 16 in the same street.
The new owners published their manifesto in the 27 August 1898 issue. Half-way between Wroblewski’s Australian multicultural inspiration and Cailliau’s chauvinistic tendencies, the new management felt the paper should promote the French national ideal, or more precisely the “defence of French interests”, which, in Australia, were essentially commercial interests. As “trade only prospers in peace, good understanding and stability”, the new editors were anxious to foster friendly relations with Australia, which however was not quite the same thing as identifying with Australia as did the founder of the Courrier australien, publisher of a French-language Australian paper. When Wroblewski’s original editors said “we”, they meant “we Australians”; by 1898 “we” designated “we French”.
For a little over a year the new team adopted the subtitle “Weekly”, which was replaced on 16 September 1899 by the long and somewhat clumsy “Organ of the Chamber of Commerce and the Committee of the Alliance Française of Sydney”. Both those institutions had just been set up, in that order, over the preceding months. This awkward subtitle would last 38 years, until shortly before the Second World War.
After the takeover of the paper by senior members of the local French colony, it enjoyed a long period of stability. From 1901 and for many years afterwards G. Proust held the position of Managing Director, supported intermittently by Paul Chauleur, the Secretary-Treasurer of the Sydney French Chamber of Commerce. The editors followed a policy of moderation and what they liked to refer to as “good faith”. They avoided polemics except to correct “inaccurate” information on France and things French in the Australian press, a policy the paper’s successive editors have systematically pursued to this day. Although after the signing in 1904 of the Entente cordiale between France and Great Britain, French-Australian relations also improved dramatically, there still remained one significant area of friction, namely Australia’s “imperial preference” in trade which acted as a serious impediment to a more balanced growth of commercial relations between France and Australia. Over many years the Courrier australien argued valiantly but without much success against the unfairness of this arrangement.
From 1932 onwards the paper passed again into private ownership: Mauritian-born Léon Magrin purchased it from the previous owners, the group of local French notables. Magrin had already been connected with the Courrier during the Wroblewski years: as the paper’s editor for a few months just before the Cailliau interlude, he had pursued policies consistent with the founder’s ideas. What is less well known is that after his brief term as editor Léon Magrin remained with the paper as its senior typesetter, extending his Courrier connection over four decades.
The French claim that happy nations have no history: it could be suggested that happy newspapers have no history either. As it happens, from the beginning of the twentieth century until the Second World War the Courrier was a happy newspaper.
On 20 August 1937, after 38 years, the reference in the subtitle to the Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance Française disappeared, to be replaced by a slightly more aggressive “Organ of the French interests in Australia”. This subtitle did not have the same longevity as its predecessor: it was to last only a little over three years.
In mid-1940, after France had been overpowered by Nazi Germany, there occurred a breakdown between the Courrier australien, whose owner, Léon Magrin, was sympathetic to the Allies and the Gaullist movement, and French Consul General Jean Trémoulet, who had opted for Pétain’s Vichy régime. The following announcement appeared in the 26 July 1940 issue of the Courrier: “The owner (and managing editor) of the Courrier australien regrets to have to inform the paper’s readers that on account of an article published in the last issue he was formally refused entry into the premises of the French Consulate General. [...] Mr Magrin expresses the hope that this measure will not deprive him of his readers’ support. [...] All his time and energy are being devoted to the service of the FRENCH CAUSE.” A week later the paper’s title page carried photos of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle.
On 30th August a public meeting was held to decide the Courrier’s future, but in the first instance the choice had been left to Léon Magrin either to carry on the fight single-handed or to let the Free French movement take over the paper’s management. Magrin promptly opted for the latter, and André Brenac, General de Gaulle’s personal representative in Australia, was appointed Chairman of the new Management Board, whilst Albert Sourdin became the paper’s new editor. From 3 January 1941 and for the entire duration of the war the Courrier carried the bilingual subtitle “Journal hebdomadaire de la France Libre dans le Pacifique - Weekly Journal of the Free French Movement in Australasia” . The war years were the heroic years of the Courrier, when it played a significant national and indeed international political role.
Albert Sourdin continued to edit the Courrier australien after the war, and became its owner. Thanks to him and his son Jean- Pierre Sourdin, who succeeded him in 1973 (when the periodicity changed from weekly to monthly), there was continuity in the management of this great newspaper for over half a century. Jean-Pierre Sourdin himself was a returned soldier, having served in the Free French Naval Forces in the Pacific during the Second World War.
On the eve of the twenty-first century, in 1999, Jean-Pierre Sourdin retired to Kiama on the South Coast of New South Wales, after selling his business interest in the Courrier to Bernard Elatri (who had been working for him for some time). Bernard Elatri took over the Courrier Australien as its new owner-manager-editor. Unfortunately he died prematurely on 8 August 2012, a victim of cancer. Jean-Pierre Sourdin followed him two months later, on 9 October 2012, at the age of eighty-seven. After hundred and twenty years of continuous publication the Courrier Australien ceased to appear at the end of 2011.
However, in May 2016 Sydney-based French businessman Bernard Le Boursicot purchased the business name Le Courrier Australien from Bernard Elatri’s widow, and a few months later launched the new digitised version of the Courrier australien as a daily (appearing from Monday to Friday) under the editorship of Belgian journalist, and now co-owner, François Vantomme.
Ivan BARKO
Emeritus Professor of the University of Sydney