French Plan for Overseas TV Channel Goes Ahead

International Herald Tribune – December 1, 2005

Doreen Carvajal

PARIS After four years of wrangling, France formally decided on Wednesday to start an international television channel by late next year in a bid to challenge the global reach of broadcasters like CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera.

The new channel lacks a name and a team of employees, but government officials are predicting that it will be up and operating by the end of next year in at least two languages, French and English, with the option of adding Arabic and Spanish.

The new channel is a project that President Jacques Chirac has vigorously promoted, and a government spokesman said Wednesday that Chirac had addressed his cabinet on the topic, saying that France "must be at the forefront of the global battle of images. That's why I am resolved that our country should have an international news channel."

Until it introduces its new name, the channel is known as "CNN à la française" or the unglamorous "CII," a French acronym for International Information Channel. The channel will have a budget of €65 million, or $76.6 million, for its first year and will be operated by the leading private French TV broadcaster, TF1, as well as the public broadcaster, France Televisions, which will be in charge. The new entity has stirred unease among journalists' unions, which have urged their members to refuse to do double duty by working for their existing public television and radio stations along with the new international channel.

"Our position is that they're hoodwinking the public because they don't have the money or the personnel for this story," said Dominique Pradalié, secretary general of SNJ, the national journalists' union, saying the unions would renew their call to shun extra duty.

France is trying to catch up with existing international channels, like Deutsche Welle, in German and English, and Al Jazeera, which plans to offer an English version next year.

"The channel will be available in France on satellite and cable," said David-Hervé Boutin, an assistant to Bernard Brochand, the French lawmaker who has worked on developing the project for three years.

The issue of the channel's availability in France sparked controversy earlier because the plan called for CII to be unavailable in France to appease TF1, which has a 24-hour all-news cable channel, LCI. Since then, consumer groups have successfully pressed for the channel to be widely available.

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