Marianne was created in 1997 by Jean-François Kahn with Maurice Szafran as editorialist. The main shareholder was the company is Robert Assaraf with 49.4% of the shares. Czech Media Invest, owner of Czech News Center, acquired most of the magazine from Yves de Chaisemartin in 2018. Marianne claims a distribution of 300,000 copies per week but topped at 580,000 with French news magazine record breaker "The Real Sarkozy" in April 2007. During the period of 2007–2008 the circulation of the magazine was 275,000 copies. It was 264,000 copies in 2010, and about 146,000 in late 2016.
During the 2007 French presidential electionMariannes editors Jean-François Kahn, Maurice Szafran and Nicolas Domenach openly supported the centre-right candidate François Bayrou, although at the same time they exposed "the editors' favourite" and advocated for French Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal. Furthermore, they conducted a strong anti-Sarkozy campaign in the magazine including a special issue released on April 14~20, the day before the vote, arguing that right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy was "insane" in a negative portrait "of all dangers". Such aggressive practice rather common in Great Britain and the United States is unusual in France. Issue #521 "The Real Sarkozy" was named after the popular anti-Sarkozy propaganda video first released on July 5, 2006 in online services – as Dailymotion French counterpart of YouTube – by left wingsupporters groupRéSo author of the "AntiSarko" 2005 online campaign, which became the magazine's best seller. It was since then made onlinefor free in the magazine's website. The issue sold well with an exceptional out of print and two reprints, but some journalists argued that the criticisms against Sarkozy actually strengthened Sarkozy's supporters per the victimization process. The previous issue's cover titled "Sarkozy's fault: he chose Bush's America against Chirac's France" as a reference to Sarkozy having been one of the few French politicians initially supporting the 2003 Invasion of Iraq which has been described by the French far left and left wing as a "fault", and by a part of the Gaullistright wing as a "mistake".
