Saying he is "not prepared to broadcast a channel that does not speak French," French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Tuesday his plans to shut down the country's fledgling multilingual TV news service France 24 to create a new, French-only version.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, seen here speaking at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Wednesday, said that any state-funded news channel should only broadcast in French.
(Francois Mori/Associated Press)

In one of his first formal sessions ever with the domestic press, Sarkozy shocked reporters by announcing that the government plans to stop funding France 24 — the state-funded 24-hour news channel launched in December 2006 by his predecessor, Jacques Chirac.

Sarkozy said his goal is to form a new network, to be titled France Monde, as quickly as possible.

Like France 24, the proposed new service is intended as an alternative to what some French critics have labelled an anglophone-dominated television news market led by the U.K.'s BBC World, U.S. network CNN and Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.

However, the new service would broadcast only in French.

France 24 currently broadcasts in French, English and Arabic. The addition of a Spanish service had been slated for 2008.

While some details of this plan — which Sarkozy said he foresees as amalgamating the resources of France 24, Radio France Internationale and TV5 — are "open to debate," he was adamant that any state-funded TV channel should only broadcast in French.

"Between Al-Jazeera, the Arab perspective, and CNN, the Anglo-Saxon perspective, we would like to carry more of a French perspective," he said, adding that perhaps the new service could carry subtitling in other languages.

Sarkozy also suggested that all advertising be removed from state-funded television networks, which currently are supported by government money as well as ad revenues. The new service would be supported by revenue from new taxes and levies on cellphones, internet service providers and on the advertising revenues of private television channels, he said.