It is a date in the history of our newspaper. Thursday 7 April is the birth of The world in Englishan English language digital edition that provides English language readers with translated versions of many articles published daily on lemonde.fr. The aim of this project is twofold: to offer the Anglophone world a French and European vision of current affairs; give even more visibility to the work of the editors of the World and thereby broaden the recruitment pool of our subscribers.
The idea of making a digital version of the World in English was already mentioned a few years ago. But then preference was given to another choice: to settle more in the French-speaking world and settle there The world as a reference medium. So “The African World” was launched in early 2015 and has evolved since then. This specific editorial effort focused on the Francophonie remains on the agenda: for example, it will result in the creation of two additional correspondent posts in the coming months, in Brussels and Montreal.
But from February 2015 were also published on lemonde.fr two articles translated into English, on the occasion of the publication of “SwissLeaks”, an international study conducted by The world on a global tax evasion system developed by the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC bank.
From time to time, editorial content in English is published on the site of the World : a video about the first seasons of the series game of thrones, an editorial warning from a newspaper about the consequences of Brexittitled “Britain beware, “Brexit” could be your Waterloo! », or even a phone call from the journalists of the World and friendly personalities to guarantee the editorial independence of the editorial board by granting it a right of approval in the event of a change of controlling shareholder of the publishing house…
Change of pace from January 17, 2022: Gilles Paris, head of international service and correspondent for the newspaper in Washington from 2014 to 2021, signs the first episode of his column called “The French Test” : a daily English-language article to tell the French presidential election campaign to an English-speaking audience. At the same time, the project The world in English is founded: a team is formed to prepare the launch of a site entirely in English for the first round of the presidential elections, to be held on April 10.
The team consists of eight journalists, six from the Paris editorial staff of World and two in the newspaper’s Los Angeles office. She is responsible for selecting the articles to be translated, validating them after translation and managing the homepage of the site in English. The translation is provided by two American agencies using an artificial intelligence tool. The editing and validation of articles is carried out by journalists who are native English speakers.
The world in English will therefore not be intended to publish original content, but the translated versions of a wide selection of articles offered by The world, as well as some agency dispatches, to keep abreast of current events. All sections and all themes are covered in this project, with the exception of some specific formats or topics that are too “French-French”. The publication of these articles in English is logically done with some delay compared to their French version, the time to perform the translation and proofreading.
With this project, the many editorial content that the editors of the Worldwill reach a new audience with a staff of about five hundred journalists, who may be interested in “the unique, independent and balanced view” whether it concerns major international and social issues, the climate crisis or geopolitics, in the words of Jérôme Fenoglio, the director of World† The stakes are ambitious: it’s a matter of finding a place in an English-speaking space where there is no shortage of quality media.
A newsletter with a selection of articles from: World in English will be out every day, with three different transmission times so that readers in any geographic area (America, Europe-Africa, Asia-Oceania) can receive it in the morning. The world in English will distribute certain articles for free, but the entire offer will only be accessible by subscription, with prices varying according to geographic areas. Subscribers to the Complete, Family offers or to the paper edition of the World have automatic access to it as part of their subscription.
Its purpose is also commercial, while: The world has set itself the goal of reaching one million subscribers (all media together) by 2025. “With this investment, our ambition is to increase the growth of our digital subscriber portfolio and that our international audience will eventually bring together nearly a quarter of our subscribers”explains Louis Dreyfus, Chairman of the Board of Directors of World† The world passed the half-million subscriber milestone for the first time in its history in December 2021.
