Coordinates: 48°50′1.9″N 2°15′38.3″E / 48.833861°N 2.260639°E / 48.833861; 2.260639

TF1 is a national French TV channel, controlled by TF1 Group, whose major share-holder is Bouygues. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. It's also considered as the most viewed television channel in Europe (since the British television ITV1 had lost this title). Flagship series include CSI, The Voice and House M.D.

TF1 originally stood for Télévision Française 1 (French Television 1). Since its privatisation in 1987, the abbreviation is no longer expanded, so as to avoid confusion with the government-owned channel France Télévisions^{[citation needed]}.

The channel is part of the TF1 Group of mass media companies, which also includes the news channel LCI and Eurosport, the largest European sports network. Together with France Télévisions, TF1 co-managed the international French news channel France 24 but has since sold its share. TF1 had possessed the satellite-network TPS, which have been sold to the Canal + Group.

TF1 is a supporter of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) initiative (a consortium of broadcasting and Internet industry companies including SES, OpenTV and Institut für Rundfunktechnik) that is promoting and establishing an open European standard for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface.

Programs[link]

• French TV Shows now airing:
  • Julie Lescaut
  • Diane, femme flic
  • Alice Nevers, le juge est une femme
• These French TV Shows were shown on TF1 : Les toqués, Rose et Val, Soeur Thérèse.com, Mes amis, mes amours, mes emmerdes..., Commissaire Cordier, R.I.S Police scientifique, Les Cordier, juge et flic ; Extrême limite ; La Vie devant nous ; Joséphine ange gardien.
• American TV Shows now airing (in French):
  • Surface (Surface)
  • Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (New York unité spéciale)
  • Walker, Texas Ranger (Walker, Texas ranger)
  • Life (Life)
  • Monk (Monk)
  • CSI: NY (Les experts : Manhattan)
  • CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Les experts)
  • Wild Card (Méthode Zoé)
  • The Young and the Restless (Les feux de l'amour)
  • Crossing Jordan (Preuve à l'appui)
  • House (Dr House)
  • Grey's Anatomy (Grey's Anatomy)
  • Close to Home (Close to Home)
  • The Mentalist (Mentalist)
  • Law & Order: Criminal Intent (New York section criminelle)
  • CSI: Miami (Les experts : Miami)
  • Brothers & Sisters (Brothers & Sisters)
  • Dirty Sexy Money (Dirty Sexy Money)
• These American TV Shows were shown on TF1: Ghost Whisperer (Ghost whisperer), 7th Heaven (7 à la maison), Strong Medicine (La vie avant tout), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Terminator : les chroniques de Sarah Connor), Law & Order (New York police judiciaire), Bionic Woman (Bionic woman), One Tree Hill (Les frères Scott), Private Practice (Private practice), Las Vegas ; Will & Grace ; What About Brian ; Yes, Dear (Oui chérie!) ; Joan of Arcadia (Le monde de Joan) ; American Dreams (Mes plus belles années); Dawson's Creek (Dawson) ; Felicity ; Baywatch (Alerte à Malibu) ; Angel ; Beverly Hills, 90210 (Beverly Hills) ; Melrose Place ; Silk Stalkings (Les dessous de Palm Beach) ; MacGyver ; Mad About You (Dingue de toi) ; Providence ; Strong Medicine (La vie avant tout) ; Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (Hercule) ; Xena: Warrior Princess (Xena, la guerrière) ; The Invisible Man (L'homme invisible) ; Sunset Beach ; Law & Order: Trial by Jury (New York cour de justice) ; Threat Matrix (Agence Matrix) ; L.A. Dragnet (Dragnet) ; Karen Sisco ; North Shore (North Shore: hôtel du Pacifique) ; Point Pleasant (Point Pleasant, entre le bien et le mal) ; Conviction ; Tarzan (Jane et Tarzan) ; The Mountain (La famille Carver) ; Cover Me: Based on the True Life of an FBI Family (FBI family) ; General Hospital (Alliances & trahisons) ; Passions ; One Life to Live (On ne vit qu'une fois) ; All My Children (La force du destin) ; Guiding Light (Haine et passions) ; Search for Tomorrow (C'est déjà demain) ; Parker Lewis Can't Lose (Parker Lewis ne perd jamais) ; Hunter (Rick Hunter) ; Knight Rider (K 2000) ; Hart to Hart (Pour l'amour du risque) ; Columbo ; Starsky and Hutch (Starsky et Hutch) ; Eight is Enough (Huit, ça suffit !) ; Knots Landing (Côte Ouest) ; Dallas; Santa Barbara ; The A-Team (Agence tous risques) ; Diff'rent Strokes (Arnold et Willy) ; Lost (Lost).
• These Reality Shows were shown on TF1: Survivor (Koh-Lanta), The Voice (The voice : la plus belle voix), Fear Factor (French version) ; Je suis une célébrité, sortez-moi de là! (French "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!") ; Greg le Millionaire (French "Joe Millionaire") ; Marjolaine et les Millionnaires ; Nice People (French Big Brother) ; 1ère Compagnie (French "Celebrity Bootcamp")  ; Mon Incroyable Fiancé (French "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé") ; Queer : Cinq Experts dans le Vent (French "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy") and Le Royaume (French "The Riket").
• Game Shows now airing:
  • Les 12 coups de Midi
  • The Dating Game (Tournez Manège !)
  • Le Juste Prix (The Price is Right)
  • La Roue de la Fortune (Wheel of Fortune)

• Famous iconic programs:
  • L'Île aux Enfants
  • 1, rue Sésame (French Sesame Street)
  • Club Dorothée (With Dragon Ball Z, Knights of the Zodiac, Sailor Moon and other shows). Replaced with TFOU TV.

• Animated television series: Pokémon ; Dora the Explorer ; Sonic X, among others

In 2005, TF1 launched TF1Vision, a video on demand service.

Share[link]

From 1983 to 1986, TF1 was second behind Antenne 2.

** Minimum

Criticism[link]

Some commentators accuse TF1 of being an excessively populist, commercialised channel. There is a clear emphasis on "light" entertainment programmes over more serious content, and the channel's success is sometimes seen as being founded on the ménagères de moins de 50 ans (housewives under 50) audience segment. Certainly, a large proportion of the schedule consists of gameshows, sensational documentaries and dubbed versions of TV series. The channel's news service is perceived as consisting of more celebrity news and human-interest stories than its public-sector competitors.

On 16 April 2009, the employee responsible for the "Web innovation" department was fired for criticizing the Hadopi law in a private email (on 19 February) sent to a Member of Parliament. The management of TF1 was notified about the e-mail by the Ministry for Culture and Communication, whom Ministry Christine Albanel is also one the authors of the Hadopi law.^[1][2][3]

In 2004 Patrick Le Lay, CEO of TF1 made the following statement about the channel's aims:

"There are many ways to speak about TV, but in a business perspective, let's be realistic: at the basis, TF1's job is helping Coca-Cola, for example, to sell its product. What we sell to Coca-Cola is available human brain time. Nothing is more difficult than obtaining this availability. This is where permanent change is located. We must always look out for popular programs, follow trends, surf on tendencies, in a context in which information is speeding up, getting manifold and trivialized." ^[4]

Critics of TF1 also contend that its news coverage is slanted towards supporting right-wing politicians – they were in particular accused of supporting Édouard Balladur in the 1995 presidential elections, and of overstating crime during the 2002 electoral campaign to tilt the balance in favour of former French president Jacques Chirac, who campaigned on a law and order platform.

Key figures within TF1 are close friends to some of the most powerful politicians in France, and the relationship between Bouygues and the public-sector contracting system often raises suspicions. Nicolas Sarkozy (President of the French Republic from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012) is a frequent guest of the channel, and is seen as being given an easier ride than on other networks. Immigration and violence are arguably conflated in the channel's news programmes. In addition, it is occasionally alleged that news reports from TF1 tend to ignore issues yielding a bad light on their parent group (Bouygues), while stressing the problems of competitors (such as VINCI).

Such criticism is heavy in the satirical show Les Guignols de l'info, broadcast on rival private network Canal Plus. However, TF1 now competes in this category with M6, which was initially a generalist channel focusing on musical programmes, but now has programming more resembling TF1 (notably, reality shows that TF1 started running just after M6 introduced them).

See also[link]

• List of television stations in France

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Site (French)

v t e Television in France Terrestrial digital (free) TF1 France 2 France 3 Canal+ France 5 M6 Arte Direct 8 W9 TMC NT1 NRJ 12 La Chaîne parlementaire France 4 BFM TV I>Télé Direct Star Gulli France Ô Terrestrial digital (pay) TPS Star Paris Première Canal+ Sport Canal+ Cinéma CFoot Planète+ TF6 LCI Eurosport Other free TV5MONDE France 24 EuroNews (France) Guysen TV (France) Équidia Téva L'Équipe TV M6 Music Hits M6 Boutique Liberty TV Tropik TV Fashion TV Art Channel KTO Demain! The Walt Disney Company Disney Channel Disney Junior Disney Cinemagic Disney XD Other (pay) MCM Mezzo 13ème Rue Planète+ Jimmy RTL9 Comédie+ XXL Canal J Orange Sport AB1 OM TV Série Club Ciné+ Premier Ciné+ Frisson Media holding companies France Télévisions TF1 Group Métropole Télévision Canal+ Group Lagardère Active AB Groupe

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Florence Foresti, 2008

Florence Foresti (born November 8, 1973 in Vénissieux, Rhône) is a French comedienne and actress.

Background[link]

Following her high school studies in literature, theatre and dramatic expression at Saint-Just de Lyon, Florence Foresti entered a school for cinematography at Lyon. After her studies, she appeared in the French television show Thalassa.

At 20, Florence enrolled in a course in classical theatre at Lyon, which she quit after just two days. She had a few other jobs, including working for EDF in Lyon, before finally becoming a computer graphics artist. But she didn't give up on her artistic ambitions, and in 1998 made her début at the café-théâtre Le nOmbril du mOnde ("The navel of the world"), as part of an all woman trio Les Taupes Models (a pun between French "Model Moles" and English "Top Models") with Céline Ianucci and Cécile Giroud, while simultaneously working as a computer graphics artist. The trio was noticed while touring and Anne Roumanoff proposed to make the act the first part of her show. Florence Foresti's career was launched.

In 2001 her first one woman show, Manquerait plus qu'elle soit drôle ("The only thing missing is that she be funny") won the Jury prize at the Antibes festival. Her style bears comparison with that of Muriel Robin and Sylvie Joly, as well as with some of the 'attitude' and voices of Dieudonné M'bala M'bala and Élie Semoun. She appeared in the Stéphane Bern programme 20h 10 pétantes, and then on Laurent Ruquier's On a tout essayé, playing zany characters.

In 2009 she staged her show MotherFucker. She explained the Anglo-Saxon directness of the title in an interview with Paris Match: "I asked myself, can one remain a woman, while still being a full-time mother? This question affected me so much that I dubbed my show MotherFucker. And it's a nod to Madonna, my idol. After the birth of her daughter, Lourdes, she appeared in a T-shirt with the word Mother on the front, Fucker on the back. It's so clever, this way of playing with her image, her private life and her playing with words. I stole this."^[1]

Filmography[link]

• 2006: Dikkenek : Commissaire Laurence
• 2006: Lucas, fourmi malgré lui : voice of the ant Kreela (in the french version of this film)
• 2007: Détrompez-vous : Brigitte
• 2007: Si c'était lui... : Roseline, sister of Hélène, played by Carole Bouquet
• 2008: Mes amis, mes amours of Lorraine Lévy : Sophie, the florist
• 2009: w:fr:King Guillaume , dir: Pierre-François Martin-Laval : Magali Brunel
• 2011: w:fr:Hollywoo (also scriptwriter) : Jeanne

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Lenombrildumonde.com

This article about a French actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

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David Belle
Born	(1973-04-29) 29 April 1973 (age 39) Fécamp, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Actor Choreographer Traceur
Known for	Parkour, District B13
Height	1.79m
Parents	Raymond Belle (father) Monique Belle (mother)
Relatives	Jeff Belle (brother) Jacob Donhue (half-brother)
Website
DavidBelle.com

David Belle (born 29 April 1973) is well known as the founder of Parkour. Belle founded Parkour based on his training and the teachings from his father Raymond Belle. The discipline has since spread around the world and now has adherents in virtually every country. Belle is also an actor and choreographer, and he is well known for his work incorporating Parkour into films such as in District 13, Babylon A.D., and Prince of Persia.

Life[link]

David Belle was born and raised in Fécamp, France. He descends from a modest family in the suburbs of Paris. His grandfather Gilbert Kitten, father Raymond Belle, and brother Jeff Belle have been highly skilled rescuers in the French military fire service.^[1][2]

In 1984, at the age of 11 Belle moved to Lisses, France. He made close friends with a group of teenagers with a similar physical passions who began training with him. Some of the friends that trained with David would later become known as the Yamakasi. Later in life David spent time in the military and fire brigade with aspirations of following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. He left soon after for personal reasons in order to dedicate himself to Parkour.

He later joined the Troupes de marine in Vannes, where he received a promotion, a gymnastic agility certificate of honour, and champion records for Regimental rope-climbing (which his father had once held) and the Essonne obstacle course. He has however said that his taste and love for adventure and freedom did not go well with the regimented life of the military.^[3]

Upon completing his national service, he worked in various professions including a warehouse worker, security guard and furniture salesman. He also spent 3 months in India studying Kung Fu. After his return he continued his training in Parkour and filmed footage of his capabilities which he later turned into the famous Speed Air Man video. In 1997 the Stage 2 team (Francis Marroto, Pierre Sled and Pierre Salviac, Georges Kanellitsas) were shown a video of Belle and decided to film a news feature about Parkour.

In filming this news feature the term Yamakasi was used for the first time in connection with the team. David did not approve of the name and felt like it did not give credit to his father, so he split from the group after the feature. Later David would go on to train other students who gave themselves the name 'Tracer.' The spelling was later adapted to 'Traceur', and has since been used to define a practitioner of Parkour.

Belle was first introduced to his acting career in a meeting with Hubert Koundé (La Haine), in order to discuss the success of Parkour on the big screen. He then began developing his acting ability with the play Pygmalion, and has since been successful in obtaining a number of roles mostly in French films and promotions. Belle has been featured in promotional videos for Tina Turner, and Iam. He has starred in "Les gens du voyages" and "Un monde meilleur", followed by "L'Engrenages" and "Femme Fatale", as well as "Les rivières pourpres 2", starring Jean Reno. After filming several more advertisements and promotions for the BBC, Nissan, Canon, and Nike, Belle was contacted by Luc Besson (director of Nikita, and The Fifth Element) regarding co-starring as lead actor with Cyril Raffaelli in the action movie District 13, followed by the sequel District 13: Ultimatum.

Filmography[link]

Acting

• "Louis Page" as Laurent (1 episode, 2000)
• Engrenage, L' as Le créancier (2001)
• Femme Fatale as French cop (2002)
• Divine Intervention (Also known as Yadon ilaheyya) as Marksman1 (2002)
• District 13 (French: Banlieue 13) as Leïto (2004)
• Un monde meilleur as main soldier (2006)
• Babylon A.D. as the kid with tattoos (2008)
• District B-13: Ultimatum (French: Banlieue 13 Ultimatum) as Leïto (2009)
• Metal Hurlant Chronicles as Red Light (2012) (1 episode)
• Brick Mansions as Lino (a remake of B13 District 13) (2013)

Stunts

• BBC One's advertising campaign (2002)
• Canon commercial
• Nike commercial
• Nissan commercial
• Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse (2003)
• Transporter 2 (2005)
• Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time (2010)
• Covert Affairs (2011)
• Colombiana (2011)

Media figure and business interests[link]

In spite of Belle's fame he has stayed largely out of the media light over the years. His last well known appearance was made in when he appeared as a guest at the New Yorker Festival in 2007. Belle also interviewed for the article "No Obstacles" written by Alec Wilkinson which was published in April 2007.^[4]

Belle currently endorses the clothing company Take Flight.^[5]

David Belle's Parkour Groups[link]

• [Les Traceurs]
  • Belle was the leader of a group called "Les Traceurs" which also included well known practitioners Sebastien Foucan and Stephane Vigroux. The name has since been used to refer to those that practice Parkour.
• PAWA (former member)
  • David helped form the Parkour World Association, but he stopped the group for lack of cohesion.
• Yamakasi
  • Contrary to popular belief, David was never a member of the Yamakasi group. He was a part of the group that later called themselves the Yamakasi, but the group chose the name Yamakasi during the filming of the Stade 2 news feature, credited as the first news feature about Parkour. Belle was against the name and wanted to call the practice Parkour. He then split from the group after the feature because he felt that naming took away from the recognition of the discipline and its history.

See also[link]

• Free running
• Sébastien Foucan

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: David Belle

• David Belle at the Internet Movie Database