CNN à la française

last updated 8 January 2015

Paris

France will launch a French-language global news channel in 2006, the French government said this week. President Jacques Chirac first floated the idea of a French satellite station two years ago, when he was trying to muster international opposition to the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. He said the Anglo-American viewpoints were winning the “battle of footage,” since viewers around the world could get news from CNN and the BBC, but not from a French perspective. The new station will be a joint venture between state-funded France Telecom and the private station TF-1.