This book traces the history of the Tour de France, beginning from its creation in 1903 against the historical backdrop of the Dreyfus Affair. Its approach is unique : it is based on statistical facts about the press group that organizes the competition, with the intention of better understanding the long-term evolution of the race while at the same time tracing more than a century of the economic, social, and cultural history of France.
Jean-François Mignot is a sociologist-demographer and an associate member of the Groupe d’Étude des Méthodes de l’Analyse Sociologique de la Sorbonne (GEMASS). He is interested in social phenomena from a quantitative point of view.