Agence France-Presse
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
news agency
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
and Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
. It is also the largest French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet. AFP is headquartered in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, with regional offices in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Nicosia
Nicosia
Nicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...
, Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
, São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and bureaux
News bureau
A News bureau is an office for gathering or distributing news. Similar terms are used for specialized bureaus, often to indicate geographic location or scope of coverage: a ‘Tokyo bureau’ refers to a given news operation's office in Tokyo; foreign bureau is a generic term for a news office set up...
in 110 countries. It transmits news in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
.
History
The agency was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis HavasCharles-Louis Havas
Charles-Louis Havas was a French writer, translator, and founder of the news agency Agence France-Presse .Born at Rouen, Havas can be regarded as the founder of the concept of a press agency. He translated information from abroad for the French national press, aware of their growing interest in...
as Agence Havas
Havas
Havas is the second largest advertising group in France and is a "Global advertising and communications services group" and the sixth-largest global advertising and communications group worldwide, operating on the communications consulting market through three main operational divisions:*Euro RSCG...
. Two of his employees, Paul Reuter
Paul Reuter
Paul Julius Freiherr von Reuter was a German entrepreneur and later naturalized British citizen...
and Bernhard Wolff
Bernhard Wolff
Bernhard Wolff was a German media mogul. He was editor of the Vossische Zeitung, founder of the National Zeitung , and founder of Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau , one of the first press agencies in Europe and one of the three great European telegraph monopolies until the World War II-era, the other...
, later set up rival news agencies in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
respectively. In order to reduce overheads and develop the lucrative advertising side of the business, Havas’s sons, who had succeeded him in 1852, signed agreements with Reuter and Wolff, giving each news agency an exclusive reporting zone in different parts of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. This arrangement lasted until the 1930s, when the invention of short-wave wireless improved and cut communications costs. To help Havas extend the scope of its reporting at a time of great international tension, the French government financed up to 47% of its investments.
In 1940, when German forces occupied France during the Second World War, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed "Office Français d'Information" (French Information Office); only the private advertising company retained the name Havas. On August 20, 1944, as Allied forces
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
moved on Paris, a group of journalists in the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
seized the offices of the FIO and issued the first news dispatch from the liberated city under the name of Agence France-Presse.
Established as a state enterprise, AFP devoted the post-war years to developing its network of international correspondents. One of them was the first Western journalist to report the death of the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, on March 6, 1953.
AFP was keen to shake off its semi-official status, and on January 10, 1957 the French Parliament
Parliament of France
The French Parliament is the bicameral legislature of the French Republic, consisting of the Senate and the National Assembly . Each assembly conducts legislative sessions at a separate location in Paris: the Palais du Luxembourg for the Senate, the Palais Bourbon for the National Assembly.Each...
passed a law establishing its independence. Since that date, the proportion of the agency’s revenues generated by subscriptions from government departments has steadily declined. Such subscriptions represented 115 million Euros in 2011.
In 1982, the agency began to decentralize its editorial decision-making by setting up the first of its five autonomous regional centres, in Hong Kong, then a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Crown colony
Crown colony
A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the English and later British Empire....
. Each region has its own budget
Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...
, administrative director and chief editor. In September 2007, the AFP Foundation was launched to promote higher standards of journalism worldwide. The mission of the AFP "... is' 'defined by its statutes: to report events, free of « all influences or considerations likely to impair the exactitude » of its news and « under no circumstances to pass under the legal or actual control of an ideological, political or economic group."
In 1991, AFP set up a joint venture with Extel
Extel
Extel was founded in 1872 with its initial undertaking being the laying of the first telegraphic cable on the Atlantic seabed to electronically connect London and New York...
to create a financial news service, AFX News. It was sold in 2006 to Thomson Financial
Thomson Financial
Thomson Financial was an arm of The Thomson Corporation, which was one of the world's leading information companies, focused on providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers...
.
The Mitrokhin archive
Mitrokhin Archive
The Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate...
identified six agents and two confidential KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
contacts inside Agence France-Presse who were used in Soviet operations in France.
In October 2008, the Government of France
Government of France
The government of the French Republic is a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the fifth Republic. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic"...
announced moves to change AFP's status, notably by bringing in outside investors. On November 27 of that year, the main trade unions represented in the company's home base of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
- the CGT, Force Ouvrière
Force Ouvrière
The General Confederation of Labor - Workers' Force is one of the five major union federations in France. In terms of following, it is the third behind the CGT and the CFDT....
, SNJ, Union syndicale des journalistes CFDT
Union syndicale des journalistes CFDT
Union syndicale des journalistes CFDT is one of the three journalist's labor unions in France, created in 1992 and involved in professional deals in about one hundred newspapers, TV and radio. Its website was created in 2005....
and SUD, launched an online petition to oppose what they saw as an attempt to privatise the agency.
On December 10, 2009, the French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand
Frédéric Mitterrand
Frédéric Mitterrand , a Franco-Tunisian citizen, is the French Minister of Culture and Communication. Throughout his career, he has been an actor, screenwriter, television presenter, writer, producer and director.-Biography:...
announced that he was setting up a Committee of Experts under former AFP CEO Henri Pigeat to study plans for the agency's future status.
On February 24, 2010, Pierre Louette unexpectedly announced his intention to resign as CEO by the end of March, and move to a job with France Télécom
France Télécom
France Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...
.
Statutes
Public company
This is not the same as a Government-owned corporation.A public company or publicly traded company is a limited liability company that offers its securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or through market makers operating in over the counter markets...
operating under a 1957 law, but is officially a commercial business independent of the French government
Politics of France
France is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, in which the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France is the head of government, and there is a pluriform, multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is...
. AFP is administered by a CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
and a board comprising 15 members:
- Eight representatives of the French pressMass mediaMass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
; - Two representatives of the AFP personnel;
- Two representatives of the government-owned radioRadioRadio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and televisionTelevisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
; - Three representatives of the government. One is named by the prime ministerPrime Minister of FranceThe Prime Minister of France in the Fifth Republic is the head of government and of the Council of Ministers of France. The head of state is the President of the French Republic...
, another by the minister of finance, and a third by the minister of foreign affairsMinister of Foreign Affairs (France)Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs ), is France's foreign affairs ministry, with the headquarters located on the Quai d'Orsay in Paris close to the National Assembly of France. The Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the government of France is the cabinet minister responsible for...
.
The board elects the CEO for a renewable term of three years. The AFP also has a council charged with ensuring that the agency operates according to its statutes, which mandate absolute independence
Independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory....
and neutrality. Editorially, AFP is governed by a network of senior journalists.
The primary client of AFP is the French government, which purchases subscriptions for its various services. In practice, those subscriptions are an indirect subsidy
Subsidy
A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...
to AFP. The statutes of the agency prohibit direct government subsidies.
Investments
Notable investments include:- AFP GmbH:
AFP GmbH is the subsidiary of AFP in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, producing German-language services for local press, internet and corporate clients.
- SID:
Sport-Informations-Dienst (SID) is producing a German-language sports service.
- Citizenside:
In November 2007, AFP announced its investment in Scooplive, a news photo and video agency online, created in France in 2006. Scooplive became Citizenside
Citizenside
Citizenside is a social network of over 50 000 amateur and pro photographers, freelance journalists, and citizen reporters in more than 100 countries. Images contributed to Citizenside are licensed to the worldwide media via the Agence France-Presse's Image Forum...
after this investment.