Radio in France

In spite of some attempts to launch radio in France as early as the end of the 19th century, with Eugène Ducretet successfully transmitting radio messages between two Paris landmarks in 1897,[1] it became fully developed only during the Interwar period. In 1938, the government of Édouard Daladier brought broadcasting under central control.[1]

On the outbreak of the First World War, General Gustave-Auguste Ferrié began using the Eiffel Tower for radio transmissions.[1] Radiotechnique, founded in 1919 as a holding company for Émile Girardeau's Société française radio-électrique, began manufacturing radio sets in 1921.[2] Radio Normandie (originally Radio Fécamp), the brainchild of Fernand Le Grand, was licensed by the French government in 1926[3] and expanded partly as a result of the activities of Leonard Plugge, a British politician, who founded the "International Broadcasting Company" in 1931 and persuaded Le Grand to start broadcasting programmes in English on his behalf.

After World War II, radio in France became a public monopoly and it was "liberated" in 1981 with the influence of François Mitterrand. Independent stations are licensed and regulated by the CSA while several public radio services are provided by Radio France. There are also "peripheral" services (mostly on longwave) broadcasting programming into France from Monaco, Andorra, Luxembourg and Germany.