Oh then I'll probably disappoint. As we say here, culture is like marmelade, the less you have, the more you spread. I think my messages here are mostly insightful insofar I offer first hand details on local politics that will be foreign to most of the board. A lot of the stuff is really only surface level with a few "hot takes" or opinions in the mix.
I used to read more newspapers back in the day, notably Charlie Hebdo, the Canard Enchainé and Libération (family choice). Today I'm mostly staying aware through radio and podcasts, which I have the leisure to listen while at work.
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France Info is a decent radio to keep in touch with current events and they're good with injecting longer interviews and debates within the news recap.
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Le Nouvel Esprit Public (
link) is a good weekly podcast for getting a liberal & centrist perspective. It's an hour long, generally has two topics, one on domestic politics, the other on international affairs. Debate is respectful and insightful and mostly elevated by the quality of guests (including editors from Le Monde, the Paris correspondant of the FAZ, one Ambassadeur de France, the former Prime Minister of Bénin etc...). It used to be a radio show on France Culture until this year, but the founder and host was fired and decided to create a splinter indie podcast. The original radio show
L'esprit Public still exists on France Culture radio and so far it's decent (though a notch of quality below), you can listen to all past shows in podcast form.
- Radio France International has a good podcast on geopolitics called
Géopolitique (duh). Same deal than above, available in podcast form. Two shows a week, slighty below an hour. Mostly academics and experts on a given subject.
- I like to check the live feed of
Libération for domestic and the wire from
Reuters for everything else. Reuters is slanted to the UK or the US (depending on the feed you choose) and towards business but their wire is fully accessible for free and they have a phone app, otherwise I'd have AFP in the rotation if it was possible. As was mentioned by Samson Manhug, Reuters / AFP / AP wire services are good because they're short, to the point and try to be mostly factual.
- Reuters also have podcasts :
War College is a good one for international affairs through the military lens. Weekly and an hour long. One guest interview. It had a lot of good stuff recently on Russia and North Korea.
Otherwise with the Internet, it's more of a matter of knowing where to look when needed IMO than to read a paper back to back. I'm not reading the following on the regular but I can vouch for those :
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Jean-Dominique Merchet for French defense affairs. He's currently at
l'Opinion (he changed employers quite a few times over the years) and he has a blog online.
Le Canard Enchainé always had good source on military and intelligence affairs (page 3, half a page every week).
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Ultima Ratio is a decent blog for military strategy. They have several papers in English too.
- Out of the big French daily newspapers,
Le Monde is probably the better one. I'll go check their site if I'm looking for a slighty more in depth article about some political topic of the day. Had my period of checking
Le Figaro too but apart from the better gossip on conservative infighting it didn't bring much to the table.
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RFI always had good networks in Africa, worth checking when needed.
- I barely watch TV now but when I do and as far as news are concerned it's either
France 24 (international focus and some good medium form reporting) or
Euronews (cheap but with a real European wide focus free of the hysterics of political theater).
La Chaine Parlementaire / Public Sénat (French C-Span, for anyone wondering), on top of broadcasting real parliamentary work, also have decent in depth reports on public matters. Haven't watched
Arte in years but the news bulletin is way above average, from the echos I get. Everything else on TV is distilled madness and noise.
Having a peek at local newspapers online for a particular country -if language permits- when it's in the news, even just for a couple of editorials, is always good too. Generally more granular with the reporting and helps get a feel for the local perspective (or the approved line).
And for the rest, I'm just coasting by on the little knowledge I can thank my parents and my education for.
Let me know if it was what you were looking for.
EDIT :
Le Monde Diplomatique Joking aside, it always was too
rich for my taste and the thing would always end up falling out of my hands in boredom. I guess it's good that it exists.