France media guide

Television is France's most popular medium. The flagship network, TF1, is privately-owned and public broadcaster France Televisions is funded from the TV licence fee and advertising revenue.

Satellite and cable offer a proliferation of channels. Major pay-TV operator Canal+ is owned by media giant Vivendi. Digital terrestrial TV carries dozens of channels.

France has a free press and more than 100 daily newspapers. Most of them are in private hands and are not linked to political parties.

Public Radio France serves a domestic audience and French overseas territories. Commercial radios, particularly RTL and Europe 1, command large audiences.

France is a force in international broadcasting. Radio France Internationale is a leading outlet and its Arabic-language Monte Carlo Doualiya service broadcasts across the Middle East.

Global news channel France 24 TV broadcasts in French, English and Arabic. It has said it aims to present "a different point of view from the Anglo-Saxon world".

There were 60 million internet users by December 2021, comprising 92% of the population (Internetworldstats.com). Around 76% of French people are active on social media (Gaasly,com 2021). Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are the leading social networks.

• Media guides by BBC Monitoring

Press

• Le Monde - respected national daily, considered to be France's newspaper of record

• Liberation - national daily, founded in 1973 by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, centre-left leaning

• Le Figaro - national daily, centre-right leaning

• Ouest France - Rennes-based; France's best-selling daily

• L'Express - news weekly

• Le Point - news weekly

Television

• France 2 - national, main public TV network

• France 3 - national, public

• France 5 - national, public, educational

• BFM TV - national, commercial news channel

• TF1 - national, commercial

• M6 - national, commercial

• La Chaine Info - rolling news channel owned by TF1

• France 24 - publicly-owned global news channel; services in French, English, Arabic

• TV5 Monde - international French-language TV, with programmes from French, Belgian, Swiss and Canadian public broadcasters

• Canal Plus - national, subscription channel

Radio

• Radio France - operates national and regional outlets, including speech-based France Inter and all-news France Info

• Radio France Internationale (RFI) - international broadcaster, via shortwave and FM relays worldwide

• Europe 1 - major commercial station, news and entertainment

• RTL - major commercial station, speech and music

• NRJ - commercial, leading hit music network

News agency

• Agence France Presse (AFP) - Paris-based, founded in 1835