Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse has its origins in the Agence Havas, founded in 1835 in Paris by Charles-Louis Havas, making it the world's oldest news service. The agency pioneered the collection and dissemination of news as a commodity, and had established itself as a fully global concern by the late 19th century. Two Havas employees, Paul Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, set up their own news agencies in London and Berlin respectively.

In 1940, when German forces occupied France during World War II, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed "Office français d'information" (French Information Office); only the private advertising company retained the name Havas. On 20 August 1944, as Allied forces moved on Paris, a group of journalists in the French Resistance seized the offices of the FIO and issued the first news dispatch from the liberated city under the name of Agence France-Presse.

Established as a state enterprise, AFP devoted the post-war years to developing its network of international correspondents. One of them was the first Western journalist to report the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on 6 March 1953.

AFP was keen to shake off its semi-official status, and on 10 January 1957, the French Parliament passed a law establishing its independence. Since that date, the proportion of the agency's revenues generated by subscriptions from government departments has steadily declined. Such subscriptions represented 115 million euros in 2011.

In 1982, the agency began to decentralize its editorial decision-making by setting up the first of its five autonomous regional centres, in Hong Kong, then a British dependent territory. Each region has its own budget, administrative director and chief editor. In September 2007, the AFP Foundation was launched to promote higher standards of journalism worldwide. The Mitrokhin Archive identified six agents and two confidential KGB contacts inside Agence France-Presse who were used in Soviet operations in France.

In 1991, AFP set up a joint venture with Extel to create a financial news service, AFX News. It was sold in 2006 to Thomson Financial. In October 2008, the Government of France announced moves to change AFP's status, including the involvement of outside investors. On 27 November of that year, the main trade unions represented in the company's home base of France – the CGT, Force Ouvrière, Syndicat national des journalistes, Union syndicale des journalistes CFDT, and SUD – launched an online petition to oppose what they saw as an attempt to privatise the agency. On 10 December 2009, the French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand announced that he was setting up a Committee of Experts under former AFP CEO Henri Pigeat to study plans for the agency's future status. On 24 February 2010, Pierre Louette unexpectedly announced his intention to resign as CEO by the end of March, and move to a job with France Télécom. In November 2013, AFP and Getty Images were ordered to pay $1.2 million compensation to freelance photojournalist Daniel Morel for using his images posted on Twitter related to the 2010 Haiti earthquake without his permission, in violation of copyright and Twitter's terms of service.

AFP's statute was changed in 2015 to bring it into line with European legislation through Law No. 2015-433 of 17 April 2015. The state's financing of AFP was thus modified and was structured into two components:

Financial compensation for the Agency's missions of general interest

AFP Video services

In July 2001, the agency announced the launch of AFP Video services, a video graphics division. Already in 2007, the agency launches AFPTV – a project in which all news from 2011 appear in HD video format. As of 2015, 200 videos in 7 languages appear on the site every day. On 10 June 2024, AFP announced the appointment of Mehdi Lebouachera as its new Global Editor-in-Chief, effective November 2024. Lebouachera succeeds Sophie Huet, who held the position since 2019 and is set to transition to a new role overseeing AFP's artificial intelligence strategy. Lebouachera previously worked as an AFP video journalist in Central America and Mexico before becoming the Video Editor-in-Chief for Latin America in Montevideo. He was later appointed Global Video Editor-in-Chief in Paris and, in September 2021, assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief for the Asia-Pacific region. He has also worked in Nicosia, Jerusalem, Gaza and Baghdad.

Mobile services

In the late 2000s, Agence France-Presse expanded its presence on mobile platforms. In partnership with the agency Momac, AFP launched AFP Mobile, a white-label service offering real-time news dispatches, photos, and videos for mobile portal publishers (including WAP and smartphone platforms such as the iPhone). According to Erik Monjalous, AFP's Commercial and Marketing Director, the publishing platform was designed to provide a complete editorial and technical solution for mobile operators. The service also introduced an innovative business model based on advertising revenue sharing, marking a shift in AFP's role from a traditional content provider to a full-fledged media company.

Legal issues

In 2011, AFP was found liable for using photos taken from Twitter without the consent of their author, Haitian photographer Daniel Morel. The agency was ordered to pay $1.2 million in damages. In October 2017, AFP was found guilty of libel against the Front National. In 2016, the agency had falsely attributed fraudulent tax practices to the party in connection with the Panama Papers scandal. On 10 February 2025, one of its journalists filed a criminal complaint for workplace abuse against AFP. Separately, France’s Labor Inspectorate referred around twenty additional potential cases to prosecutors. In July 2025, a preliminary investigation was opened.