France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned international news television network based in Paris. Its channels broadcast in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish and are aimed at the overseas market. Based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, the service started on 6 December 2006. It is aimed at a worldwide market and is generally broadcast by pay television providers around the world, but additionally, in 2010, France 24 began broadcasting online through its own iPhone and Android apps. It is a provider of live streaming world news which can be viewed via its website, YouTube, and various mobile devices and digital media players. The stated mission of the channels is to "provide a global public service and a common editorial stance". Since 2008 the channel has been wholly owned by the French government, via its holding company France Médias Monde, having bought out the minority share of the former partners: Groupe TF1 and France Télévisions. The budget is approximately €100 million per year. The current director of France 24 is Vanessa Burggraf. Programming France 24 is broadcast on four channels: in French, in English, in Arabic and in Spanish. Their playout is outsourced to Red Bee Media. France 24's programming is divided more or less equally between news coverage and news magazines or special reports. Along with 260 journalists of its own, France 24 can call on the resources of the two main French broadcasters (Groupe TF1 and France Télévisions) as well as partners such as AFP and RFI. In 2016, France 24 started sharing its French language night-time programming with the France-based France Info. According to Marie-Christine Saragosse, president and CEO of France Médias Monde, "part of the value added of this public channel" would be the fact that "[France 24 journalists] will be wide awake while others would be sleeping". History Channel inception The channel was created with the backing of president Jacques Chirac, with the aim of providing a French perspective of the news, which was dominated by English-language media outlets. First project (1987–1997) In 1987, then French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac expressed his desire for an international television news channel in French and had requested a report into the activities of current international broadcasts from France (Radio France Internationale, TV5, and to a certain extent Réseau France Outre-Mer) and noted the collective offering was "fragmented, disorganised and ineffective." With the arrival of François Mitterrand