PARIS, Nov 5: France has decided to concentrate its foreign TV broadcasts on the Islamic world, and rather than set up an entirely new network, it will make use of Euronews, the Lyons- based Pan-European TV service. The Pan-European TV service broadcasts in six languages, notably in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa.

The project, which is being developed under the aegis of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry, would allow France to give itself at last its own world broadcast service.

France, sources said, needed its own foreign broadcast facility to allow it get its own point of view across, for example, in the recent standoff with the United States over a UN Security Council resolution on a possible attack on Iraq.

Indeed, it is the difficulty experienced recently by the French government in getting across its message with regard to the possible US attack against Iraq that prompted authorities at the highest levels to decide to give themselves an international broadcast capability, especially turned towards the Islamic world and the Middle East.

At present the Middle East is covered by TV5 Orient, the Francophone channel, whose capacities are relatively modest, especially when compared to the estimated audiences of its rivals: BBC World (222 million households), CNN International (172 million), and Al-Jazira (35 million).

As for Euronews, it has a potential audience of 123 million households, which France would like to increase substantially, notably by increasing its broadcasts towards the Middle East and Asia, perhaps in association with TV5, which has estimated that it will need a special budget in excess of 120 million euros.