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French President Jacques Chirac's vision of a Gallic rival to CNN is approaching reality, pledging a pluralist and distinctively French world view to offset the "unified, Anglo-Saxon" outlook of the US giant.
Chirac promised a "CNN a la franchise" in 2002 and the idea gained impetus amid the controversy over his opposition to the US-led war in Iraq, and his determination to defend a "multipolar" world from US cultural dominance.
The success of Arabic news stations such as Al Jazeera has encouraged others to enter a field once dominated by CNN, at the same time as new technology made television cheaper to produce.
Now, in a high-tech office building south of Paris still swarming with builders, the project dubbed France 24 - in which state-owned broadcaster France Television and commercial television company TF1 have equal stakes - is nearing launch in early December.
"Diversity, debate, culture, the art of living are going to be the hallmarks of France 24 and that's going to provide a different point of view from the Anglo-Saxon world," said Alain de Pouzilhac, the station's chief executive.
"We're going to emphasise all the differences of the world, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxons who only show a unified vision of the world," he said, adding he hopes France 24 will be an opinion-former to rank with CNN or BBC World within three years.
Under any circumstances, setting up a combined television and Internet operation, potentially reaching over 190 million viewers broadcasting 24 hour news in French and English, with Arabic to follow next year, would be a big undertaking.
With the mutual suspicions fuelled by the Iraq war never far from the surface in either the United States or France, however, sensitivities are even higher. Some Arab commentators have also seen the project as French imperialism in disguise.
De Pouzilhac, formerly one of France's most prominent advertising executives as head of Havas, is keen to dispel any notion of hostility to the United States and said he is a big admirer of the professionalism of his US and British rivals. "It's not anti-American or against the Arab world, or anything like that at all. It's just a different point of view."
Lebanon, west Africa, Iran and rioting in France's own poor suburbs are some of the stories where the difference may be seen most clearly but de Pouzilhac says the station will also be focusing heavily on areas like health and the arts.
Some commentators suspect the station will be little more than a mouthpiece of the French government - a view it unsurprisingly rejects, saying all its journalists must sign a pledge of independence. "This fear that it's going to be a Chirac channel is rubbish," said Marc Owen, a veteran of Britain's Granada TV, and now one of the senior English-speaking presenters at the station. "Am I going to just do what Chirac says? I'm not." He also says the station is aware of the danger of imposing a parochial French slant on news at all costs.
"It's not that. It's being alive to the influence France has in the world and illuminating stories by weaving some of that in to your coverage. We're not doing local radio," he said.
A young, 170-strong editorial team from 27 countries with a backbone of senior producers and presenters faces the tricky job of finding a consistent approach that appeals to an international audience while keeping the French "difference".
Ironically, given the station's aims, much of its output will be in English as it seeks to appeal to viewers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the east coast of the United States. "The idea is to have a French vision in two languages," said Albert Ripamonti, deputy head of news at the station.
France 24 is starting with an annual operating budget of 80 million euros ($102 million) - small in comparison with CNN or BBC World - and entering an already crowded market.
But it sees benefits in this challenge. "The fact that we are the last to arrive is an enormous advantage, especially given how quickly technology is evolving," said Chief Operating Officer Jean-Yves Bonsergent, who has responsibility for the station's technical platform.
Some French television has already been available for years on satellite through TV5, a consortium of French-language channels from France, Switzerland and Belgium that beams the French nightly news to cable viewers.
France already has other 24-hour news channels broadcasting in France such as LCI, a subsidiary of TF1, but they tend to focus more heavily on domestic French news. With a much smaller network of correspondents outside France than its bigger rivals, France 24 will be counting heavily on flexible editing and videophone equipment that will reduce the need for cumbersome broadcast equipment. "If we'd come along two years ago, we couldn't have done it," Bonsergent said.

Copyright Reuters, 2006

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