The plan, announced last year and backed by the government and public broadcaster France Télévisions, aimed to create a broadcasting powerhouse able to compete against US streaming giants such as Netflix.
France's state-owned public service network France Télévisions is joining forces with main private network TF1 and also M6, the country’s most profitable private channel, to launch a subscription service next year called Salto, offering a back catalogue of French TV shows and original content in response to the growing success of US video entertainment giant Netflix, which has attracted 3.5 million subscribers in France.
In his first set-piece television interview since becoming France's president in May, Emmanuel Macron was in unrepentant mood, refusing to apologise over a string of controversial remarks which he now claims have been misunderstood. Speaking on the privately-owned TF1 television station, the centrist president also said the country would have to wait for up to two years for his reforms to take effect. Hubert Huertas analyses President Macron's much-anticipated television appearance.
French President François Hollande has set out his policy agenda for the next two years, announcing a series of austerity measures to rein in the country’s huge public debt burden while putting social justice reforms on the back burner until 2014. "I'm not going to do in four months what my predecessors haven't done in five or ten years," said Hollande, whose opinion poll ratings have collapsed amid mounting unemployment and a stagnating economy. He presented his programme in a live television interview Sunday, when he also confirmed the introduction of a 75% tax on top incomes.
