Roger-Viollet goes to Photononstop – 5 years

This just in: Following a positive vote by the Paris Council, the City of Paris has just granted Photononstop Group, for a period of five years, the cultural promotion and commercial exploitation of the digital reproductions of two heritage photographic collections: Roger-Viollet and France-Soir.

• Photononstop Group will have the right to use Roger-Viollet brand name and website and will keep the current Roger-Viollet’s team as well as the Parisian office.

Photononstop co-founder Giles Taquet told PhotoArchiveNews.com when we called him: “We are delighted to be chosen to look after the development of the Roger-Viollet agency and its amazing photographic collection. Throughout the years we plan to put hundreds of thousands of new and mostly unpublished images online.”

The City of Paris recovered the daily newspaper France-Soir archives in 1987, when the daily newspa- per moved from its historic building.The City of Paris then bought the archive’s second part after the newspaper’s bankruptcy in 2012. France-Soir was created in 1944 and was one of the largest daily news- papers by circulation in France in the 60’s.Its photographic archives cover more than fifty years of world history through 6.5 million images.

‘La Parisienne de Photographie’ was created in 2005 to preserve, digitize and promote the photo- graphic heritage of the Roger-Viollet and France-Soir collections. Despite the payment of subsidies by the City, it found itself in a difficult financial situation.

In 2020, an exhibition space dedicated to heritage photography will open in Roger-Viollet’s current Parisian offices located in the heart of the famous Saint-Germain des Prés district.

• Created in 2000, from the merger of two photographic agencies, Photononstop Group is the first independent French group of photo agencies.