L'Express was co-founded in 1953 by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, future president of the Radical Party, and Françoise Giroud, who had earlier edited ELLE and went on to become France's first minister of women's affairs in 1974 and minister of culture in 1976. When founded during the First Indochina War, it was modelled on the US magazine Time and the German magazine Der Spiegel. L'Express is published weekly.