Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 cities across 151 countries. Its main regional headquarters are based in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C. AFP publishes stories, videos, photos and graphics in French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and German. Two-thirds of its turnover comes from its own commercial activities, with the remaining one-third being provided by the French government (amounting to 113.3 million euros in 2022) as compensation for carrying out its mission of general interest. History Agence France-Presse has its origins in the Agence Havas, founded in 1835 in Paris by Charles-Louis Havas, making it the world's oldest news service. The agency pioneered the collection and dissemination of news as a commodity, and had established itself as a fully global concern by the late 19th century. Two Havas employees, Paul Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, set up their own news agencies in London and Berlin respectively. In 1940, when German forces occupied France during World War II, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed "Office français d'information" (French Information Office); only the private advertising company retained the name Havas. On 20 August 1944, as Allied forces moved on Paris, a group of journalists in the French Resistance seized the offices of the FIO and issued the first news dispatch from the liberated city under the name of Agence France-Presse.