The Franco-Prussian War started in 1870 and Giffard enrolled in the army, with his parents' reluctant permission, at Fontaine-le-Dun in Normandy.

He returned to Paris in July 1904, weakened by illness, and proceeded to work for several papers, including Dépêche Coloniale and Petit Marseillais.

[3] Giffard joined Le Figaro on the strength of his reports of the World Exhibition in Paris and of conferences he organised there concerning the invention of the telephone and telegraph.

He reported from Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Greece, Austria, Scotland, Algeria, Tunisia, Malta, Cyprus, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark.

Hippolyte Auguste Marinoni[4][Note 1] asked Giffard to reorganise the newsroom of the daily paper, Le Petit Journal.

L'Auto's response came on 19 December 1902, when Géo Lefèvre suggested a Tour de France which was an overwhelming circulation success in 1903.

Michelin's Charles Terront won in 71 hours 22 minutes after passing Dunlop's Jiel-Laval as he slept during the third night.

On 5 June 1892,[1] Giffard organised a foot-race from Paris to Belfort, a course of over 380 kilometers, the first large scale long-distance running race on record.

[1] Newspaper circulation dramatically increased as the French public followed the progress of race participants, 380 of whom completed the course in under 10 days.

In Le Petit Journal on 18 June 1892, Giffard praised the event as a model for the physical training of a nation faced by hostile neighbours.

[7] In 1894, when Giffard was editor in chief of newspaper Le Petit Journal, he organised what is considered to be the world's first car race from Paris to Rouen,[Note 2] sporting events were a tried and tested form of publicity stunt and circulation booster.

The paper promoted it as a Competition for Horeseless Carriages (Concours des Voitures sans Chevaux) that were not dangerous, easy to drive, and cheap during the journey.

Thus it blurred the distinctions between a reliability trial, a general event and a race, but the main prize was for the first across the finish line in Rouen.

The entrants ranged from serious manufacturers like Peugeot, Panhard or De Dion to amateur owners, and only 25 were selected for the main race.

[10][11] The expression was made more emblematic by the picture on the cover, of a young woman wearing a modern bicycle as a crown.

Le Sieur de Va-Partout was the first French book in a new style, the literature of reporting, and therefore of a new type of author: the writer-reporter.

[12] La Fin du Cheval was Giffard's 1899 humorous thesis on the inevitable replacement of the horse by the bicycle, then by the car.

A passionate left wing Dreyfussard, he failed due to the general Dreyfusine rift in French politics, and he was a victim of de Dion's sometimes violent anti-Dreyfussard stance.