Valeurs actuelles was founded in 1966[8] by Raymond Bourgine as an offspring of the weekly Finances, a stock market information review.

From 1966 to his death in 1972, the movie section was written by the antisemitic and collaborationist writer Lucien Rebatet, under the pseudonym of François Vinneuil.

[16] In 2019, President Emmanuel Macron gave the magazine an interview and talked critically about Islam, the veil and immigration with the publication.

[19] In August 2020, Valeurs actuelles published an illustration of the black Member of Parliament Danièle Obono as a slave in chains as part of a political fiction series on public figures transposed in different historical eras, prompting an outcry from politicians of numerous parties.

[21] The magazine was found guilty of making racist comments under French hate speech rules against Danièle Obono, 41, the Member of Parliament for Paris's 17th constituency the far-left France Unbowed party.

[22] In 2021, a few months after the murder of Samuel Paty, Valeurs actuelles publishes a fake news about a professor who would be threatened with death by his students because of the study of the Holocaust.