BBC Parliament

Yes it weas better to watch on TV5 than BBC Parliament.

Ah, I suspected BBC Parliament would do this - they showed France 2's coverage of (I think) the French legislative elections a couple of years ago. Certainly worth doing, I'd say - I can't imagine they get much of an audience on a Sunday evening, so might as well do something truly niche to delight the francophones among us!

Out of interest, did France 24 do their own coverage (in French or bilingually), or take it from one of the French channels? They're joint owned by TF1 and France Televisions (France 2/3) - so in theory had plenty of options.

If anyone's interested, you can watch a replay of the election night programmes on France 2 and France 3 online.

France 2 (as shown earlier) looked amazing this year. France 3 had quite a 'young' feel this time round - younger presenters asking people to send in their videos etc. TF1 didn't splash out on a special studio - they just used a redressed version of their news set (although this set was designed with things like elections in mind).

It's not uncommon for clean feeds like this to be offered to international broadcasters; the BBC offer clean feeds of the main daily news programmes to various EBU and US broadcasters.

France 24 had their own coverage in English - and it was a very good programme. Reports from across the world, including London, as well as from the main parties in France. Denis MacShane, the ex labour minister, was interviewed from the UK.