How to watch French TV from anywhere

france.tv is the streaming and catch-up platform of France’s public service group France Télévisions. One app covers the live feeds of France 2, 3, 4, 5 and the digital channel Slash, the franceinfo news stream, a deep on-demand library that includes signature drama like Dix pour cent or Fais pas ci, fais pas ça, and live coverage of the major sporting events France Télévisions holds rights to, from Roland-Garros to the Tour de France and the Olympics. The service is free, funded by French public budgets, and largely restricted to France.

arte.tv is the French-language edition of the Franco-German public cultural broadcaster ARTE, run by the Strasbourg-based ARTE GEIE. It aggregates live feeds, documentaries, European arthouse cinema, classical and contemporary concerts and stage recordings, with a strong editorial bias towards continental affairs and long-form investigative journalism. Every programme is free, ad-free and funded by French and German public budgets.

Canal+ is the French premium TV and streaming service from Groupe Canal+, independent since its 2024 Vivendi spin-off and now listed in London. On air since 1984, it streams through the myCANAL app. Cinema sits at its core, with Créations Originales and StudioCanal films, plus sport: Top 14 rugby, Formula 1 (exclusive in France through 2029), the UEFA Champions League and the Premier League. The flagship Canal+ 100% bundle adds Netflix, Disney+, Max, Paramount+ and Apple TV+. Canal+ runs separate services with different catalogues in francophone Africa, Poland and Czechia.

ADN (Animation Digital Network) is France’s go-to anime streaming service. It simulcasts new episodes roughly an hour after they air in Japan and backs that with a library of around 550 series and films, over 15,000 episodes, in French subs plus its own human-voiced dubs, never AI. Fully independent under publisher Média-Participations since 2022, it’s the homegrown French alternative to Crunchyroll, now also reaching Germany, Austria and Poland.

franceinfo is France’s public rolling-news channel, born in 2016 from an alliance of the country’s four public-media pillars: France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde and the INA archive. It streams live around the clock for free, with hourly bulletins, interviews and data-driven analysis, and since June 2025 it occupies channel 16 of French television. The official france.tv live player is geo-locked to just 1 country, France, so from abroad it is blocked. A VPN with a French IP address brings the full live stream back.

Benshi is a French streaming service for children aged 3 to 11, built around hand-picked quality cinema rather than an endless algorithm. Its free editorial guide recommends films by age, flagging running time and themes so parents can choose with care. The paid, ad-free catalogue then unlocks 250-plus considered titles, from animation and shorts to classics and subtitled foreign films, for €4.99 a month (with a 30-day trial) or €49.99 a year, across up to five screens.

France 24 is the international news channel of France Médias Monde, the French state-owned broadcaster. On air since December 2006, it runs non-stop bulletins in four languages (French, English, Spanish and Arabic), supplemented by analytical magazines, debates and long-form reporting that tends to focus more heavily on Africa, the Middle East and Europe than most Anglo-American competitors. Streaming is free and available globally through the website and mobile apps.

Free TV is the live and on-demand streaming app from Free, the French ISP owned by the iliad group. Its ad-supported tier gives every resident in France over 170 live channels plus the Free Ciné library of 500+ films and 1,000+ series episodes, with no Freebox required. A paid Free TV+ tier unlocks 300+ channels and recording, and comes bundled at no extra cost for Freebox and Free mobile subscribers. Launched in 2021 as OQEE by Free, the service was rebranded Free TV in October 2025.

INA madelen is the subscription archive of INA, France’s national audiovisual institute. It gathers close to 14,000 titles drawn from decades of French television and radio, from classic series like Les Brigades du Tigre and Les Rois Maudits to documentaries, concerts, recorded theatre and cult shows. There are no ads, it costs €3.99 a month, and the vast majority of the catalogue streams anywhere in the world.

KTO is the French Catholic television channel, on air since 13 December 1999. Broadcasting live and on replay 24/7 with no advertising, it is funded entirely by viewer donations and carries Mass, papal trips and audiences, religious services, documentaries and faith and culture debates. Free worldwide on ktotv.com, on iOS and Android, and on Apple TV and Android TV, it is made for anyone seeking to nourish their spiritual life.

L’Équipe Live Foot is a paid, football-only streaming channel from L’Équipe (EPA Amaury), live at live.lequipe.fr since June 2024. It is a low-cost add-on (6.99 euros a month on a 12-month plan, or 7.99 with no commitment), not pay-per-match. You get World Cup 2026 qualifiers, selected Nations League ties, UEFA club qualifying rounds, internationals and women’s and youth football: 20-plus competitions a season. Just don’t expect Ligue 1 or the Champions League here.

La Chaîne L’Équipe is France’s free, ad-supported national sports channel from groupe Amaury, on DTT channel 21. It mixes news bulletins, debate magazines and live coverage of cycling, tennis, basketball, handball, rugby, motorsport, e-sport and lower-division football, plus the L’Équipe explore documentaries. Not the home of premium leagues, but the go-to for broad free sport.

LaCinetek is a French curated streaming service founded in 2015 by directors Pascale Ferran, Cédric Klapisch and Laurent Cantet. It gathers classic and arthouse films of the 20th century — handpicked by acclaimed filmmakers — through a rotating subscription plus a rental and purchase catalogue of around 2,500 titles. It is available in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco and Andorra.

M6+ is the streaming service of France’s Groupe M6 (part of RTL Group), launched in May 2024 as the successor to 6play. It carries live feeds of the group’s channels (M6, W9, 6ter, Paris Première, Téva, Gulli) alongside an on-demand library of more than 30,000 hours of films and series. The standard M6+ tier is free with ads and available in France, while M6+ Max (5.99 €/month) removes advertising, unlocks early access to selected drama, and lets you download episodes for offline viewing.

Molotov TV is the French IPTV service that launched in 2016 and was acquired in 2021 by US operator FuboTV. It aggregates more than 80 French channels live and on catch-up (TF1, France Télévisions, M6, BFM TV and others), with cloud DVR and time-shift on the paid tiers. Three plans are offered: a free Molotov tier plus two paid options that layer on extra channels and premium film content. Registered accounts now sit above 20 million.

Outbuster is a French niche streaming service devoted to “the other cinema”: world, independent and festival films that never landed a theatrical release in France. The founders started from a simple observation — barely a tenth of the films made worldwide ever reach French screens — so since 2016 they have hand-picked the overlooked gems, the offbeat scripts, the non-bankable casts and the far-flung origins. The catalogue runs to several hundred titles, all in their original language with French subtitles.

RMC Sport is the sports streaming service of France’s Altice group, launched in 2016 as SFR Sport and rebranded to its current name in 2018. It was, for several seasons, the main French rights-holder for the UEFA Champions League, but those rights moved to Canal+ for the 2024/25 cycle. The current offering centres on UFC (which RMC Sport has distributed in France for years), boxing and selected European football rights. Pricing is either month-to-month or a discounted twelve-month commitment.

Shadowz is a French streaming service devoted entirely to genre cinema: horror, fantastique, thriller and science fiction. It is run by VOD Factory, founded by Christophe Minelle, and launched on 13 March 2020 following a 2019 Ulule crowdfunding campaign. The catalogue holds 500+ titles in HD, in original version with French subtitles (VOST) or French dub, with a fresh title every Friday and monthly exclusives on the last Friday. Everything is hand-picked by an enthusiast team rather than an algorithm. A subscription costs 4.99 EUR per month or 49 EUR per year, and the service is officially available only in France.

Sooner is a French streaming service devoted to auteur and independent cinema, European and heritage films, and festival award-winners from Cannes, Berlin and Venice. It launched on 3 February 2026 from the merger of UniversCiné (a VOD service running since 2007) and Filmo, with roots in a producers’ cooperative founded in 2001. Around 1,300 hand-curated films and series sit on the subscription, with roughly thirty exclusive titles added each year and series accounting for a fifth or so of the slate. Run by Le Meilleur du Cinéma across France and Benelux, it is built for cinephiles who value editorial taste over an endless algorithm.

Spicee is a French paid streaming service built around investigative documentaries and reportage. Launched in 2015 and majority-owned by VOD Factory (the group behind Madelen, mk2 Curiosity and Shadowz), it offers more than 400 original ad-free documentaries spanning over 100 countries, covering geopolitics, in-depth enquiries and the fight against disinformation. A subscription runs at around 5 € a month, with an annual plan and a seven-day free trial. Spicee is officially available in France and Belgium.

Tënk is the first streaming service devoted entirely to creative, auteur-driven documentary — from short films to feature-length work. Run by a cooperative based in Lussas, France, its subscription rotates around ninety hand-picked titles, backed by a far larger archive of films available to rent on demand.

TF1+ is the streaming service of France’s Groupe TF1, launched in January 2024 to replace the older MYTF1 and MYTF1 MAX apps. The free, ad-supported tier carries the live streams of TF1, TMC, TFX and TF1 Séries Films alongside an on-demand library of more than 15,000 hours. A paid Premium tier strips out ads and adds early access to selected drama. With roughly 38 million monthly users, TF1+ has become the most-watched catch-up service in France.

TFOU MAX is the paid kids’ service from France’s TF1 group, live since 2015. It bundles more than 6,500 ad-free videos for ages 3 to 12 — think Miraculous, Paw Patrol, The Smurfs, Pokémon and Peppa Pig — so children watch without a single advert interrupting the fun. Parents get genuine controls, from daily watch-time limits to age filters. Unlike the free TFOU corner inside TF1+, this is the premium, far larger subscription.

Trace+ is the streaming home of afro-urban music and culture, run by French media group TRACE. Stream around 25 live channels like Trace Urban, Trace Naija and Trace Gospel, plus 100+ radios, concerts, music videos and artist documentaries. A free ad-supported tier covers the basics, while Premium at €4.99 a month unlocks everything, including the Trace Academia learning courses.