France’s international information channel

During his political campaign, Jacques Chirac declared he wished to create a French international information TV channel. Having drawn a lesson from the picture battle prior to the second Gulf war, he meant to rationalise France’s foreign audiovisual pole. After twenty years of wandering, the idea is still a disjointed instrument. Bernard Brochand’s project of associating the first private network in terms of audience, TF1, to the public holding company, France Television, does not only asks questions on the conception of public service, but also on the unilateral political utility of such an initiative.

 Summary AFRI-2004