France, Belgium and the Netherlands - Newspapers and other online news sources from the 17th – 21st centuries

Key French newspapers

Newspaper collections
Individual newspapers

Gallica - newspapers Gallica gives the full text of several important French newspapers including Le Figaro (1826-1942), Le temps (1861-1939), L'humanité (1904-1944)
Gallica - local and regional French newspapers Digitised historical French newspapers for the following regions: Alsace Champagne-Ardenne Lorraine - Aquitaine - Limousin Poitou-Charentes - Auvergne Rhône-Alpes - Bourgogne Franche-Comté - Bretagne - Centre Val de Loire - Corse - Hauts-de-France - Ile-de-France - Languedoc-Roussillon Midi-Pyrenées - Normandie - Outre-mer - Pays de la Loire - Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur
Gallica - La presse coloniale sur Gallica Access to 29 digitised 19th and 20th century French colonial newspapers including Revue de l'histoire des colonies françaises (1913-1931), Revue de l'Orient (1843-1865), etc.
Réseau francophone des bibliothèques numériques Gives access to a range of digital libraries (some of them with collections of digitized newspapers) including Gallica.

Voices from wartime France, 1939-1945 clandestine resistance and Vichy newspapers from the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale, London by Robert Tombs & Isabelle Tombs
ISBN: 9780753658857
Publication Date: 2003

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List of newspapers in France (Wikipedia)

La gazette (de France) [1631-1792] The first weekly French newspaper founded by Théophrast Renaudot in Paris in 1631. Ceased in 1915. Incomplete scans in Gallica.
Le gazetier universel: ressources numériques sur la presse ancienne The Gazetier universel is a virtual library of the press of the Ancien Régime. It gives online access to more than 320 French language periodicals of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is regularly updated. To access a particular item click on the name of the library providing the digitized version.
Mercure françois [1605] The Mercure françois is often seen as a precursor to the modern newspaper. Published since 1605 and from 1611 onwards by the Richer brothers in Paris, the Mercure françois covered important political, religious and international news providing chronological accounts of these events and including detailed reports. Digitised scans for 1605-1643.
Mercure de France [1672] Founded as Mercure galant in 1672. Hardcopy: selected years. Online for 1672 to 1674, 1678 to 1682 and 1890 à 1935 in Gallica
La Croix
Founded in 1880 as a Roman Catholic newspaper. Online: 1880-1994 in Gallica. From 2005 in Factiva. From 1995 in Nexis.
Les Échos
Founded in 1908. Online: from 1997 in Factiva.
Le Figaro
Founded in 1826. Hardcopy: 1 May 1829-31 Dec. 1831 and 1966:Jan.-1990:Dec.. Online: 1854 until
1942 in Gallica. From 1996 available online in Factiva and Nexis.
L'Humanité
Founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès & has communist leanings. Online: 1904 to 1944 in Gallica. From 2007 in Factiva.
Libération Founded in 1973. The Taylor Institution Library currently subscribe to the paper version of this weekly (term-time only) and it is to be found in the MLF (Teaching Collection).
Le Monde Le Monde is considered the French newspaper of record. It started publication in 1944.
Le Parisien
Founded in 1944. Hardcopy: 1953-57 [incomplete holdings].

Key Belgian newspapers

BelgicaPress
BelgicaPress is an online resource providing access to nine digitised historical Belgium newspapers between 1831-1970. NOTE: You must register as a user first in order to see any images, even if they are out of copyright.

Over 4 million pages have been digitised and are full-text searchable. They cover 1831 to 1970 for the following newspapers: L'Echo De La Presse, Gazet Van Brussel, Het Handelsblad, L'Indépendance Belge (printed in Britain), Le Messager De Gand, De Nieuwe Gids, De Nieuwe Standaard und Het Nieuws Van Den Dag.

However, only content before 1919 is freely accessible over the internet. That is still an amazing 1.2 million pages and particularly good news for 19th century and World War I historians. Content after 1919 can only be consulted in Koninklijke Bibliotheek België itself.
Belgian War Press
The Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society (Ceges-Soma [French-Flemish acronym]), a federal research institution on wars and conflicts of the twentieth century and their impact on Belgium, launched the Belgian War Press website on 14 December 2012.
The Belgian War Press introduces you to hundreds of Belgian newspapers that were written, printed and distributed clandestinely during the two World Wars.
Gazette de Leyde, ou, Les Nouvelles extraordinaires de divers endroits
Published between 1611 and 1811 in Leiden (Leyde).
Digitised scans for 1750-1793.
La Libre Belgique (La Libre)
Founded in founded in 1884 and one of Belgium's most important French newspaper.
Le Soir
The other important French-language Belgium daily newspaper, founded in 1887. Hardcopy: Jan. 1980-Sept. 1988 only [microfilm]

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List of newspapers in Belgium (Wikipedia)

Key Dutch newspapers

Couranten
The Couranten Corpus comprises the seventeenth-century Dutch newspapers available on Delpher. The oldest surviving newspapers were published in 1618.
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This sizeable corpus currently contains the contents of 13 newspapers, 109.532 articles and 18.926.425 words. The information in these newspapers is of interest to researchers of various disciplines, ranging from historians to historical linguists, literature scholars and art historians.

In the future, transcriptions of newly digitised newspapers from the seventeenth century and newspapers from the eighteenth century will be added to the Couranten Corpus.
Delpher - Boeken Kranten Tijdschriften
A portal giving access to over 8 million digitised images of Dutch newspapers, starting in the 1620s but being strongest in the 19th and 20th centuries.
You can search by keyword but also use some visualised browsing features by date and by title.
Kranten in Krantenbankzeeland
Contains a collection of newspapers from Zeeland (westernmost province of the Netherlands) compiled by the Zeeland Library. The digital collection includes only selected regional newspapers.
De Telegraaf
Founded in 1893, the largest Dutch daily newspaper.
NRC handelsblad
Founded in 1970 this is a daily evening newspaper published in the Netherlands. Hardcopy: Jaarg. 9:no. 77(1979)-1994:no.9. [microfilm]. Online: from 1990 in Nexis.

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List of newspapers in the Netherlands (Wikipedia)

France - Belgium - Netherlands

Also useful

Europeana Newspapers A resource giving access to 18 million historic newspaper pages, freely accessible in the public domain. Aims to convert 10 million newspaper pages to full text. You can search or browse in various ways (title, date, language, library).
Factiva Largely for contemporary newspapers (1980s-). Provides essential news for America and Europe with a collection of more than 10,000 authoritative sources includes thousands of current newspapers. Excellent for national but also local, regional newspapers and specialist or professional news. Much overlap with Nexis UK. If you can't find a newspapers in Factiva, then try also Nexis UK.
Nexis UK Vast database that provides access to over 20,000 news sources from all over the world. Particularly excellent for UK, North American and much of Europe. Its coverage is largely current and recent, but does go back 20 years in some cases. For UK newspapers, generally covers broadsheets from 1980s and tabloids and local/ regional newspapers from more recently. Also include BBC Monitoring Service. Note: Daily Telegraph starts in 2000. FT is embargoed for 30 days. Much overlap with Factiva. If you can't find a newspaper in Nexis UK, then try also Factiva.
FBIS – Foreign Broadcast Information Service [1974-1996] : Western Europe The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Report has been the United States' principal record of political and historical open source intelligence for nearly 70 years. FBIS collections relevant for British studies: Western Europe, 1974-1996 The original mission of the FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe, and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 constitutes a unique archive of transcripts of foreign broadcasts and news that provides insight into the second half of the 20th century; many of these materials are firsthand reports of events as they occurred. FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 consist of translated broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements from nations around the globe. These media sources were monitored in their languages of origin, translated into English, and issued by an agency of the US government.

Useful SOLO subject searches

French newspapers -- Directories
Paris (France) -- Newspapers
Belgian newspapers -- Bibliography
Press -- Belgium -- History

Bibliographies

Various bibliographies relating to French newspapers are to be found at REF.F.21 in the French and German Reading Room, Taylor Institution Library.

Bibliographie selective de la presse francaise (1825 - 1848)
Dictionnaire des journaux, 1600-1789 This is an electronic version of the Dictionnaire des journaux 1600-1789 published under the direction of Jean Sgard, Paris, Universitas, 1991 (Ref.F.210), (V.Per)
E. Hatin, Bibliographie historique et critique de la presse périodique française (1866)

La presse d'information : tableau chronologique des journaux belges by Bertelson, Lionel.
Publication Date: 1974
La presse et la Seconde Guerre mondiale : répertoire de la presse périodique conservée au Centre by André Cordewiener (ed.)
Publication Date: 1974
Het geïllustreerde tijdschrift in Nederland : bron van kennis en vermaak, lust voor het oog : bibliografie by Joan Hemels en Renée Vegt
ISBN: 9789071894596
Publication Date: 1993-96

Newspapers and other online news sources from the 17th – 21st centuries: France, Belgium and the Netherlands

Key French newspapers

Key Belgian newspapers

Key Dutch newspapers

Also useful

Useful SOLO subject searches

Bibliographies

Suggested reading

Gazettes et information politique sous l'Ancien Régime

La distribution et la diffusion de la presse, du XVIIIe siècle au IIIe millénaire

Revolutionary News: the press in France, 1789-1799

La presse en France : de 1945 à nos jours

From Ghent to Aix: how they brought the news in the Habsburg Netherlands, 1550-1700

De barometer van de smaak : tijdschriften in Nederland 1770-1830

De Nederlandse krant : 1618-1978 : van "nieuwstydinghe" tot dagblad (4th ed)