MUMBAI: The international French news channel France 24 which aims to give a view of global events from France's perspective has launched an Arabic version.

It is available through the Hot Bird 8 broadcast satellite of Eutelsat. This new language version joins the French and English versions of France 24, the French international news channel, which are already available to cable and satellite homes across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East through Eutelsat's Hot Bird 7A, Atlantic Bird 2 and Eurobird 1 satellites.

The daily Arabic schedule of France 24 runs for four hours from 2 -6 pm and includes a 10-minute news bulletin every 30 minutes, talk shows, business analysis, culture, weather reports and sporting highlights. France 24 COO Jean-Yves Bonsergent says, "We are very pleased to initiate broadcasts of this new version for Arab-speaking communities in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin which benefits, among others, from Eutelsat's Hot Bird satellites which bring access to over 110 million television homes, of which over 47 million are satellite homes."