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Watching French TV is one of the best ways to learn French.
The only problem is that finding French TV channels you can watch online can be challenging, most of all if you don’t live in France.
That’s why I’ve done all of the hard work for you and created a list of the best French TV channels you can watch online. You’ll also find some Canadian and Belgian TV channels.
In some cases, you may need to install a VPN or subscribe to a French TV streaming service to avoid geographical restrictions though. That’s something I show you how to do in the first part of this article.
While there are French TV channels you can watch for free from abroad, most won’t be available by default.
When this happens, you will see a message like this:
Sorry, Eurosport Player isn’t accessible from your country.
That’s because most French channels can only be watched from France.
Luckily, there are several ways to avoid this problem.
Option #1: Use a VPN to watch French TV from abroad
One of the most common (and easiest) way to easily access any website and avoid geographical restrictions is using a VPN.
When you use a VPN, your connection goes through a distant server.
For example, if you are in San Francisco, you can use a VPNserver located in Paris.
Then, all the websites will think you are in Paris, and you will have access to all the TV channels you couldn’t access before.
The bad news is that a good VPN (one that will be fast enough to watch videos and won’t show ads when you browse the web) costs money.
The good news is that it won’t cost you more than your daily cup of coffee.
I recommend NordVPN, it’s fast and reliable and allows you to easily watch French TV online.
Very useful when you want to access TV channels and websites with geographical restrictions.
All you have to do is sign up for an account, install the software and choose the location you want. Once this done, you can watch all French TV channels which are normally restricted to people located in France.
Option #2: Subscribe to a French TV streaming service
If you don’t want to bother with a VPN or want access to even more French TV channels, you can also use a French TV streaming service like Sling TV (US only).
When you subscribe to Sling TV’s French Bouquet Package, you get access to channels like:
TV5Monde Style
TV5Monde
TV5Monde Cinéma
TV5Monde Info
France 24
Tivi5Monde (for kids)
BabyTV French
You can also stream some French TV channels on Roku but will most likely need a VPN if you are not in France.
Now let’s discover the main French TV channels!
3 French TV channels you can watch for free
There are, unfortunately, very few French TV channels you can watch online from abroad without a VPN or French TV streaming service.
Here are 3 French TV channels that are still free to watch from abroad. I keep this list updated but I can’t guarantee that they will still be free when you read this article.
La Chaîne parlementaire is a TV channel broadcasting activity from the National Assembly and Senate of France.
You can watch it online from anywhere in the world.
11 French TV channels you normally can’t watch from abroad
These are TV channels you normally can’t watch unless you live in France.
I say normally, because you can easily avoid geographical restrictions by installing a VPN software or subscribing to a French TV streaming service like Sling TV.
This TV channel offers programs both in French and in German.
Most of these programs are about culture, but Arte also broadcasts popular TV shows such as Breaking Bad.
If you speak German this is a great occasion to practice your French and you can easily watch the German version of the program if you didn’t understand something.
It’s unfortunately not available from abroad so you will need to use a VPN to watch it.
Euronews is a European TV channel on which you can watch programs about news, culture, technology and many other interesting topics.
The language is pretty formal, but each video comes with a transcript you can download, which makes Euronews one of the very best French TV channels to improve your French.
You can’t watch it live from abroad without a VPN but individual videos are still available.
As one of the main Belgian TV company, RTBF owns several TV channels and a large variety of programmes you can watch live online if you live in Belgium.
France TV allows you to watch French public TV channels online in real time or a few hours after they aired.
You can watch all kinds of programs, including French TV channels for kid, which is a great start if you are a beginner in French and don’t understand more serious topics.
Play TV is an online streaming website you can use to watch a broad selection of French TV channels online including:
TF1
France 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Canal +
LCI
Gulli
Unfortunately, not all French TV channels can be watched from abroad. In some cases, you may need to either use a VPN or subscribe to a French TV streaming service.
Benjamin Houy is a native French speaker and tea drinker with a BA degree in Applied Foreign Languages and a passion for languages. After teaching French and English in South Korea for 7 months as part of a French government program, he created French Together™ to help English speakers learn conversational French.
