CAIRO: France 24, the Paris-based news broadcast service, will be launching its full-fledged Arabic service on the channel s first anniversary, announced Alain de Pouzilhac, president of France 24. The broadcaster has been operating around the clock in the Middle East for the last year in French, English and Arabic. Speaking on Thursday at a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Giza, Pouzilhac said that the Arabic service which started with a four-hour broadcast was extended to 12 hours before the decision was taken to provide the service around the clock in keeping with the channel s name and principle. On introducing the Arabic service I would like to draw attention to the fact that this is the first news satellite channel to launch in three languages, boasted Pouzilhac. The reason why we are launching on a large scale is because we ve found out that the majority of the four million Internet users who access our website in French and English are not French, he explained. Pouzilhac said that France 24 s website is accessed by a majority of Arabic-speakers, putting it in third place after Al Jazeera and CNN. Our visitors include Americans, Germans, Italians and Spaniards, all of whom are interested in getting different viewpoints about issues unfolding on the international arena. For so long the BCC and CNN have dominated the scene after they provided strong coverage of the first Gulf War. Although both channels are technically advanced, they currently offer a narrow perspective. The CNN s coverage of the current war on Iraq was lopsided in the sense that a lot of information had remained in the dark causing the popularity of this channel to decrease dramatically, Pouzilhac said. He also believes that the world needs to get the French perspective on world affairs. Pouzilhac realizes that the channel will face many challenges to achieve any degree of objectivity. Who says that any media could ever be objective? It s a fallacy that has been proven and tested by long practice. Whatever you do to achieve neutrality will always be tainted, said Pouzilhac. But he pointed out that France 24 aims to be relatively unbiased by offering as many views and standpoints as possible. The younger generations are skeptical of the truthfulness of information and are, therefore, keen on the diversity of sources, he said. Unlike the leading English channels, Pouzilhac explained, French 24 s focuses more on culture than on economy. We believe that culture is the essential cornerstone in the development of civilizations, he said.
