The French-Speaking Belgian press dedicates an important part of this adventure in its columns. Generally the newspapers record and congratulate this achievement both on human and on technological point of view. Nevertheless some interpretations change according to the newspapers and their political belonging.

Right and anti-communist publications such as “La Libre Belgique” and “La Meuse” take advantage of Gagarine’s flight to criticize the Soviet regime and its lack of clearness.
Furthermore, “La Libre Belgique” displays its fear to see an arms race develop further to that flight.
For its part, the Communist trend newspaper “Le Drapeau Rouge” takes advantage of that occasion to demonstrate the superiority of the Soviet Communism (making that way the propaganda of the Soviet regime).
We can notice that generally all the daily newspapers (except “Le Drapeau Rouge”) wonder if Gagarine’s flight is really the first one or if another flight (attempt) took place with another cosmonaut aboard a few days before. This question comes further to an article published by the English Communist newspaper “Daily Worker”.