Presses de la Cité is a French publishing company founded in 1943 by Sven Nielsen, the son and grandson of booksellers, who came to Paris in 1924.
Following Simenon's example, other French-language authors signed with the company, including Henri Queffélec, Cécil Saint-Laurent, Maurice Genevoix, René Barjavel, and Konsalik.
[3] In April 1969, Nielsen and the Bertelsmann group formed a book club on the German model, called France Loisirs, which soon became a success.
In 1973, the companies Presses de la Cité, Diffusion and Sequana were merged under the name Messageries du Livre[4] Nielsen died on (1976-12-30)December 30, 1976, aged 75.
His son Claude succeeded him, and sold some parts of the company to the investment bank Générale Occidentale, which provided capital to purchase Garnier and Bordas-Dunod.
Presses de la Cité became part of Vivendi Universal Publishing (VUP), which in 2002 was sold to Hachette Group and then in 2003 passed to Wendel Investissement.