La recepción del bombardeo de Guernica en la prensa francesa

Abstract

The bombing of Guernica, on April 26, 1937, quickly garnered international attention. The question of the responsibility for this act of war against an unarmed and innocent civilian population arose immediately. The French press took part of this debate. Instead of doing an investigative work, the daily newspaper (the communist one L’Humanité or the conservative one Le Figaro) analysed the event according to their own political framework. However, catholic publications were shaken in their convictions: La Croix, a right-wing newspaper, hesitated to acknowledge the responsibility of the Franco’s army and his allies, while the magazine Esprit denounced the myth of the Crusade. The bombing of Guernica thus constituted a crisis in French Catholicism.