Presses universitaires de France (PUF) is the most prominent academic press in France. Founded in Paris in 1921 by Paul Angoulvent, it has spent a century publishing the country's core scholarship in philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, psychoanalysis, and law. Its journal list is small by international-conglomerate standards - around 40 titles - but several of those journals, such as Revue historique (1876) and Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale (1893), are among the oldest continuously published scholarly journals in the world.

PUF is also the home of Que sais-je?, the pocket encyclopedia launched by Angoulvent in 1941: roughly 4,000 concise expert-written volumes by some 2,500 authors, translated into more than 40 languages. Since December 2016, PUF has been part of the Humensis group (formed by its merger with Belin); in January 2025, reinsurer SCOR sold its stake in Humensis to Huyghens de Participations, the holding company of the Albin Michel group, which now controls the press.

This guide covers what PUF publishes, how access and open access work in the French Cairn.info ecosystem, the peer review model, and how to submit.

PUF journals are discipline-defining venues in the French human sciences. Most publish primarily in French, though several accept English-language submissions - check each journal's author guidelines.

• ~40 scholarly journals, concentrated in philosophy, history, sociology, psychoanalysis and psychology, law, and literary studies. Most appear quarterly and are distributed digitally on Cairn.info, the francophone humanities and social-science portal in which PUF took an ownership stake in 2014.
• The Que sais-je? series - the iconic paperback encyclopedia: ~4,000 titles, each a 128-page expert introduction to one topic, with 50-60 new volumes added yearly.
• Academic monographs and manuals across 20+ book collections (Épiméthée, Quadrige, Léviathan, and others), which remain central to French university curricula.

PUF does not publish large STEM portfolios, mega-journals, or English-first titles - if you need those, look at international commercial publishers instead.

PUF operates on the French subscription model, not the APC model:

Because there are no APCs, questions about waivers and Read & Publish agreements largely do not apply. If your funder requires immediate open access, check the journal's Cairn policy and your Green OA rights before submitting.

• Model: double-anonymized peer review is the norm across PUF journals, usually with two external reviewers plus editorial-board assessment.
• Language: reviews and correspondence are typically conducted in French; some journals also review English submissions.
• Turnaround: expect roughly 2-6 months to a first decision depending on the journal; quarterly production schedules mean accepted papers can queue for an issue.

1. Pick the journal and read its author guidelines on puf.com or on the journal's own site or Cairn.info page - each journal manages its own editorial process.
2. Prepare the manuscript in French style. PUF journals follow French bibliographic conventions or Chicago-style citation, depending on the title. SciSpace hosts PUF formats and templates to match.
3. Submit by the journal's stated channel. Most PUF journals take submissions by email to the editorial secretary rather than through a central submission portal - the address is in each journal's guidelines.
4. Respond to double-anonymized review, revise, and return within the deadline the editors set.
5. Sign the publication agreement and check your self-archiving rights (HAL deposit) at acceptance.

PUF is a COPE member, and its journals follow COPE guidance on misconduct, corrections, and retractions. Editorial boards are anchored in French academic institutions and learned societies (for example, the Société d'étude du XVIIe siècle for Dix-septième siècle and the Société psychanalytique de Paris for Revue française de psychanalyse), which provides an additional layer of scholarly oversight.