daily newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...
published in
Dakar
Dakar ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The Departments of Senegal, department of Dakar has a population of 1,278,469, and the population of the Dakar metropolitan area was at 4.0 mill ...
,
Senegal
Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
and founded in 1970. It was founded as a state-run newspaper by Senegal president Léopold Sédar Senghor at a time when press freedoms were tightly circumscribed. Since Senegal's transition to a democracy in 2000, the state has remained the main shareholder.
Charles de Breteuil
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...
founded the ''Paris-Dakar'' as a weekly newspaper. The ''Paris-Dakar'' would in 1936 become the first daily newspaper in
subsaharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African countries and territ ...
. Following the independence of Senegal, the paper changed its name in 1961 and became the ''Dakar-Matin''. On 20 May 1970, it finally became ''Le Soleil''.