Watch Non StopOne language, several centres
People often treat French-language television as French television. It is wider than that. France is the largest producer, but Belgium, Switzerland and Canada have substantial public broadcasters, and French is the main broadcast language across much of West and Central Africa and part of the Maghreb. Each of these centres looks at the world from where it stands.
France: a crowded news market
France has several competing rolling news channels, a public news channel and an international one. Channels such as France 24, franceinfo and BFMTV have run live streams on the open web, and France 24 broadcasts in French, English, Arabic and Spanish for an international audience.
French news television is built around the studio debate. The morning interview with a politician, the midday bulletin and the long evening panels are its fixed points. Parliamentary channels add full, unedited coverage of debates and committee hearings.
Belgium, Switzerland and Canada
The French-speaking public broadcasters of Belgium, Switzerland and Canada produce news with different priorities: European institutions seen from Brussels, international organisations seen from Geneva, North America seen from Montréal. Some of their online streams are restricted to their own territory for rights reasons. When that is the case the stream is blocked at the source and the channel is shown as unavailable.
Francophone Africa
From Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Burkina Faso to Cameroon, Gabon and the two Congos, national television is largely in French. Public channels carry the official bulletins; private channels add debate, music and entertainment; and pan-African news channels in French address the whole zone. It is the part of the French-speaking landscape that is growing fastest online.
More detail is in the guide to African TV live online.
The Maghreb
In Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, French shares the screen with Arabic. Some channels broadcast bulletins in both languages; others switch within the same programme. See the guide to Arabic live TV for the wider picture.
What you can expect to find live
- News: the most complete offer, and the most continuous. The news category had 1 152 channels on air in all languages as this page was built.
- Parliaments and institutions: debates, hearings and press conferences carried in full.
- Music: French-language radio stations and music channels streaming with video, in the music category.
- Documentary and culture: a French strength, though more often on demand than live.
- Sport: studio shows and press conferences. Premium football, rugby, tennis and cycling rights are held by broadcasters and are not freely streamed, with the notable exception of events carried by public channels within their own territory.
Following a story in French
The advantage of a multi-centred language is comparison. A summit in Brussels, a coup in the Sahel or an election in Québec will be covered at length by the channel closest to it and summarised by the others. Opening the nearest channel first, then a second from another centre, gives a fuller picture than any single international network.
In the Console, the language filter set to French gathers channels from every country at once, and the multiview wall puts two or four of them on the same screen.
When to watch
The French-speaking world is spread across many time zones, from Montréal to the Indian Ocean. Paris, Brussels and Geneva share a clock, and most of West and Central Africa is within an hour or two of it, which makes those channels easy to follow together. Canadian channels run several hours behind Europe, so their evening news arrives in the middle of the European night.
Within any of these countries, the fixed points are the same: a morning news programme built around a political interview, a midday bulletin, and a main evening bulletin followed by debate.
For learners of French
Rolling news is ideal listening practice: clear diction, a limited vocabulary that repeats through the day, and captions on screen that state the subject. Start with an international channel, whose presenters speak slowly for a worldwide audience, then move to domestic channels and to African and Canadian ones to train your ear to other accents.
Where to start on Watch Non Stop
Open the France page on the country pages for the domestic offer, then the pages of the African countries you are interested in. Or begin in the TV Guide and search for a channel by name. Everything plays through the broadcaster's official player, free, with no account.