France pays for broadcasts in English!

France is hurt, very hurt, by the dominance of American culture and the English language. Especially hurt because they know they are superior to us. They can prove it! So they purposed to provide some balance. They decided to end the hegemony of CNN by adding the French point of view in their own 24-hour-per-day news channel. 3 hours per day will be in French. The balance in English! The government of France is paying the bill!The Washington Times reports:

President Jacques Chirac promised a "CNN a la francaise" in the 2002 election campaign and is committed to a station that will "spread the values of France and its global vision throughout the world." It was always known that part of the channel's output would be in English and Arabic, but champions of the French language were appalled at suggestions that its output in French be less than four hours a day. The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine quoted Jean-Pierre Paoli, right-hand man to CII's head, Alain de Pouzilhac, as saying: "It could be half in English, half in French or a different proportion." But the weekly said CII executives told counterparts at the state-owned France Televisions, a partner with the private TF1 network in the venture, that French-language transmissions would be limited to three hours each morning. The rest, Le Canard Enchaine said, would be "in the language of Shakespeare."

Reality hits. If France wants to influence the world with its "unique French values" then the broadcasts must be in English!

A spokesman for the new channel said: "Eighty percent of our target audience will be Anglophone. If we want pluralism in the field of international television news, we cannot ignore this. "Our viewers will be opinion formers, journalists and people who travel a lot, and the language most common to them is English.

Hat tip to Gary Foss.

[posted with ecto]