Le Figaro is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. The oldest national newspaper in France, Le Figaro is considered a French newspaper of record, along with Le Monde and (to a lesser extent) Libération. Le Figaro is the second-largest national newspaper nationally, after Le Monde. It was named after Figaro, a character in several plays by polymath Beaumarchais (1732–1799): Le Barbier de Séville, La Mère coupable, and the eponymous Le Mariage de Figaro. One of his lines became the paper's motto: "Without the freedom to criticise, there is no flattering praise".
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