L'Autre Afrique was founded in 1997[2] by Paris-based journalist Jean-Baptiste Placca as a response to the "clichéd and often reductive" depiction of Africa in the Western media.

[3] In contrast, L'Autre Afrique sought to inspire a different reading that reflected the diversity of opinion, realities, terminology, and complexities of daily life across a vast continent of more than 50 nations.

Placca also saw the newspaper as a pedagogical tool and called for African journalists to contribute to growth of Africa.

L'Autre Afrique was distributed both in Europe and Africa[2] to take advantage of the mobility that the French communication and transport infrastructure provided to develop a global network of journalists, analysts and photographers.

This network proved difficult to sustain as financial pressures forced L'Autre Afrique to close after only three years.