France's government gave the green light on Wednesday for an international TV news channel to start broadcasting in French by the end of next year, with the aim of spreading the country's vision to the world.Be still my heart!
The brainchild of President Jacques Chirac, the 24-hour news channel is expected to beam into homes, hotels and newsrooms in much the same way as U.S.-owned CNN, Britain's BBC World and more recently Qatar's Arabic-language al-Jazeera.Sounds like perfect company, but competition for "journalism" awards in the pond scum category will be fierce.
"France must ... be on the front line in the global battle of TV pictures," a spokesman quoted Chirac as telling the cabinet, which approved the establishment of a company to run the French International News Channel.The acronym should be FINC which seems appropriate, but apparently in French it is CFII.
"The aim is to bring France's values and its vision of the world to everywhere in the world," he said.Possible highlights:
"Throw another Renault on the barbie"
"We surrender"
"Time to discuss the amount of the bribe"
