NORMAL LIFE: Good Luck, Sarkozy!

Unbelievable! The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has decided to pull on the plug on France's English-speaking 24-hour News channel, France 24. The president's aim, apparently, is to challenge the dominance of english-speaking market leaders such as BBC World and CNN.

In it's current form, it sounds like France 24 had got it right: they were presenting in French, English and Arabic, a perfect combination given the exponential growth of the English langauge as well as the ever-emergent presence of the Arab world.

Understandably, the President doesn't want taxpayers money used to broadcast non-French content. What a u-turn, given that the channel was launched as recently as December 2006: since then, surely the channel has had the advantage of broadcasting news from a French perspective? At least, this way, the world would have a chance to understand their logic!

This decision reeks of selfishness all too evident of the French in general. No so unlike their cowardice during the second world war, this just serves to confirm as a veiled admission that they cannot compete with the English-speaking channels. If they think the world is suddenly going to learn French, they've got another thing coming!

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