available in France and Belgium. Programmes in English débuted on 3 December 1933 under the editorial guidance of Stephen Williams. The station closed down at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, but it resumed service after the War. Beginning in 1946, it could be heard easily in France. Until the 1980s, only the French public radio networks could transmit from France itself. Radio Luxembourg was one of private "peripheral" networks transmitting from abroad. Radio Luxembourg quickly gained a large audience in France. In the 1960s, it was faced with the success of another peripheral network from Germany, Europe 1, which adopted a modern tone and attracted a young audience. RTL Radio Luxembourg's changing environment led to the station being renamed "RTL" on 11 October 1966, less obviously mentioning its connection with Luxembourg (the acronym being short for Radio Télévision Luxembourg). During the May 1968 crisis, the French public radio networks were on strike and TV was not independent from the government. RTL and Europe 1 were the main ways of obtaining independent information for the French people. They were nicknamed "barricades radio". Unlike the British government's treatment of the Luxembourg English service, which was never allowed to have a landline from London, the French service has long had its main studios in Paris, with a landline from there to the transmitter. Consequently, it appears to the listener as simply a big French national radio station, as the Luxembourg connection is downplayed. In 1981, under president François Mitterrand, privately run radio stations were allowed to broadcast in France. RTL, now broadcasting in France mostly at 104.3 MHz, was the radio network with the most listeners from 1981 to 2002. Whereas Luxembourg's English service was always centred on light entertainment and popular music, RTL France is a mixed station. About 50% of its broadcast is information and talk focusing on news and current affairs with a large team of respected journalists. Radio Luxembourg's two main national competitors are Europe 1 (another out-of-country commercial station, broadcasting from Saarland, again with Paris studios) and the state-owned France Inter. All three stations used to have very high-powered transmitters occupying long-wave frequencies that date back many decades. The French service has called itself RTL for many years. It broadcasts through a network of FM transmitters throughout France, as well as the internet, cable and satellite. In 1991 a separate RTL Belgian service in French,