Le Soleil de la Floride the only dependable way to reach the 1.2 million French Canadian tourists and snowbirds visiting Florida each year!
This newspaper has been providing tourist oriented news to the French Canadian and foreign French market for over 30 years. Throughout these years, it was owned by two of Canada’s largest media firms, Hollinger Publishing owned by Conrad Black, and then Transcontinental in Montreal.
Le Soleil de La Floride was purchased by the present two owners, Louis S. St. Laurent II and Yves Beauchamp, 15 years ago. Jean-Paul St. Laurent, the father of Louis S. St. Laurent II, President of this newspaper, had founded one of the first television station in Quebec City. He was also a lawyer in the same city and served as the liberal member of the Canadian House of Commons for the county of Temiscouata. And Louis’s grand-father had served as the Liberal Prime Minister of Canada from 1948 until 1957.
Since 2012, Denise Dumont is in charge of the improved content of this newspaper, as well as representing the newspaper as a reporter and spokeswoman for the newspaper with the local and national news media, both US and Canadian.
Le Soleil de La Floride also published an annual French tourist guide “ACCES FLORIDE” which is circulated in both, Florida and in the Province of Quebec and other French speaking areas of Canada. It contains over 110 Pages of information and advertisements and is very popular as it allows advertisers to be in an annual tourist guide which has a readership of over 300,000!
There have been other French publications in Florida, but most of them have closed after lasting a few years. Some have been less than completely honest with their advertisers by publishing less copies than advertised and having a limited number of points of distribution. They have, in some cases, offered lower advertising rates, but many advertisers did not have the results they expected in trying the new publications.
This newspaper has also provided information to protect its readership from fraud and other mistakes to avoid in Florida. These articles relate to the purchasing of properties, placing title to properties in a way to avoid the need of future probate, problems of renovations performed by unlicensed licensed contractors, construction without proper permits and other legal problems its readership might encounter by not knowing the laws and practices in Florida.
Also, this newspaper feel that the readership can easily get hard current news through their computer and other devices. The newspaper is for tourist and snowbird oriented news. Such items as what and where to visit in Florida is not readily available in French in the internet and so our newspaper serves a purpose to the visiting Florida French tourist and winter residents.
We will continue improving the contents of this newspaper as well as the points of distribution. We realize that there is a great demand for an increase of the number of newspaper we publish 35 times a year and we realize that in some cases, there are 3 to 5 readers of the same newspaper. However, this French newspaper is provided for free in Florida and on the Web.
