The France24 website was launched Wednesday night followed by the TV station – available on cable and satellite (list of satellite and cable service providers) as of Thursday.

The News website is in French, English and Arabic and will dedicate 20% of its programming to culture & lifestyle, the TV station has Arabic previewed for 2007 and Spanish in 2009.

So Chirac’s vision of international news seen from a French perspective is finally under way and the public funded company (€86m) dwarfed by its major competitors CNN and BBC in terms of budget – €1.2bn for CNN, is aiming at viewing figures in the region of 75 million households in more than 90 countries.

update: over 500,000 people from 108 countries connected to the France24 website during its Wednesday evening launch, according to AFP. via Le Expansion

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more info Guardian Atelier.fr