Goals What you'll be able to do
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to…
- 📖 Find your way around the French magazine press (categories, best-sellers).
- 💬 Recommend a magazine based on a friend's tastes and budget.
- ✍️ Write a reader's letter (comment, request, complaint).
- 🌍 Discover France Médias Monde: TV5MONDE, RFI, France 24.
- 🌐 Compare the magazine press in France and in the English-speaking world.
Discover 📖 Getting in
Here is a website offering magazine subscriptions for less than the newsstand price: monmagazine.com. Look at its categories and best-sellers. Heads-up on a cognate: French magazine = English "magazine" (same word). But French presse ≠ "press conference" — it just means "the press" (the industry / publications).
monmagazine.com
📂 Magazines
- Actualité
- Cinéma
- Cuisine
- Culture
- Économie
- Famille
- Féminins
- Informatique
- Jeunesse
- Langues
- Loisirs
- Maison-Jardin
- Masculins
- Musique
- Santé
- Sciences
- Sport
- Télévision
🔥 Best-sellers
- TV Magazine
- Version Femina
- Femme Actuelle
- Télé 7 Jours
- Télé Z
- Télé 2 Semaines
- Télé-Star
- TV-Hebdo
- Choc
⭐ Selection
Poche
de femmes
Arts
📰 Three short articles on the magazine press
The French are probably the biggest magazine readers in the world. Every day, 30 million people read at least one, and there are 7,000 magazines on the shelves of French newsstands.
Weekly TV listings magazines are doing very well. Of the ten best-selling magazines in France, seven are TV magazines, two are women's titles and one is a celebrity (people) magazine.
Magazines like Closer, Public or Voici, which focus on the private lives of celebrities, are increasingly successful. Same trend in news magazines like VSD or Paris Match.
⚠️ Note: in French, la presse people (pronounced "pee-pul") = the celebrity / tabloid press. It's an English loanword used as an adjective ("magazines people").
Exercise 1 — Online subscription 💻
Look at the website above and answer the questions.
- a. What's it called? →
- b. What can you do on this site? →
- c. How is it organised? →
- d. How much does the Beaux Arts subscription cost? →
- e. Which magazine is €4 at the newsstand? →
Vocabulary Words to remember
📚 The magazine press
💰 Subscribing
🌟 Stars & success
Read and learn Comprehension
Exercise 2 — Press review 📊
Look at the three short articles above and indicate which types of magazines sell best in France.
- Of the 10 best-selling magazines, how many are TV magazines? magazines.
- How many are women's magazines? magazines.
- How many are celebrity (people) magazines? magazine.
- How many magazines are sold at French newsstands? magazines.
- How many people read at least one magazine per day? people.
Exercise 3 — Which section?
For each magazine listed, find the main category from the monmagazine.com site.
- Closer / Public / Voici →
- Le Point / Paris Match →
- Première (cinema) →
- Beaux Arts →
- L'Étudiant →
- Télé 7 Jours / Télé Z →
Speak & Write Production
🗣️ Speak — Which magazine should I pick?
A friend wants to subscribe to a French magazine. Present them with the six magazines above (Le Point, Télé Poche, Questions de femmes, Beaux Arts, Première, L'Étudiant) and recommend the best one according to their tastes and budget. Act it out in pairs.
📋 Ask your friend…
- What are their interests?
- How much do they want to spend per year?
- Do they prefer a weekly (hebdo) or a monthly?
- Do they want something light (celebrities, TV) or serious (news, culture)?
✍️ Write — www.monmagazine.com
You subscribed to monmagazine.com 5 months ago. But you're no longer receiving your magazine regularly. This morning you received a different, lower-quality magazine. Write an email to the site's moderator to:
- 📝 Explain your problem.
- 💰 Ask for the cancellation and refund of your subscription.
📧 Write your email (80-120 words)
France Médias Monde 🌍 French international broadcasting
🌐 France's overseas broadcasting
France has long produced media aimed at international audiences — its rough equivalent of the BBC World Service or Voice of America. That's the job of the France Médias Monde group (set up in 2008), which brings together three flagship brands for global audiences, partly in French for learners.
The world's leading French-language TV channel. Broadcasts in 200 countries and reaches 50 million viewers per week. Programmes from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec and French-speaking Africa, with subtitles in several languages. Ideal for French learners! Site: tv5monde.com
Radio France Internationale. Broadcasts in 14 languages (French, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, Persian, Swahili…) and reaches 62 million weekly listeners. News, debate, culture. The Journal en français facile ("the news in easy French") is used by millions of learners around the world — a classic free resource.
A rolling 24-hour news channel in 4 languages (French, English, Arabic, Spanish). Live worldwide, 24/7. France's direct answer to CNN International, BBC World and Al Jazeera English.
📊 The French press in numbers
at newsstands
magazine every day
magazine readership
TV magazines
🇺🇸🇬🇧 vs 🇫🇷
In the US and UK, print magazines have largely shifted online — Time, Newsweek, The Economist and The New Yorker survive on a digital/print mix, while supermarket weeklies and most tabloid celebrity titles (People, OK!, Hello!) are squeezed by Instagram and TikTok. In France, print holds on stubbornly for specialist titles (Beaux Arts, Géo, Science & Vie), for TV listings magazines (this is the big French anomaly — 7 of the top 10 best-sellers!), and for the celebrity press — often read at the hairdresser's, in a doctor's waiting room, or on a long train journey. The corner kiosque remains a part of daily life in a way that's rarer in London or New York.
🎁 Free resources for learners
- 📻 RFI — Journal en français facile · francaisfacile.rfi.fr — 10 min/day, with a free transcript.
- 📺 TV5MONDE — Apprendre le français · apprendre.tv5monde.com — exercises sorted by level A1-C1.
- 📡 France 24 · france24.com/fr — free, live news.