France Radio Live — Free Online Stations

French radio is a story of listeners who kept finding ways around the state. For decades the government held a monopoly, and for decades the French tuned to stations broadcasting from just outside the border. When the dam finally broke in 1981, it produced one of the liveliest dials in Europe. That is the dial you find when you search for French radio live or radio France en direct.

A transmitter on the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower survived demolition partly because the army found it useful for wireless. From it came the first public broadcasts in France in late 1921, and Radio Tour Eiffel was formally inaugurated in February 1922 with weather bulletins. A state station, Radio PTT, followed from Paris the next year.

The stations "around" France

After the Second World War the state held a broadcasting monopoly. Listeners who wanted something else turned to the so-called périphériques — Europe 1, RTL and Radio Monte-Carlo — commercial stations transmitting into France from neighbouring territory. This legal loophole produced some of the most popular and inventive radio in Europe and trained generations of French presenters.

1981: the free radios

In 1981 the new government legalised private local broadcasting, and hundreds of radios libres came out of hiding. Most were small and short-lived, but NRJ, started that year in a Paris apartment, grew into the country's biggest commercial network and expanded abroad. Skyrock, Fun Radio and many others built the youth sound of the 1980s and 1990s.

A law that protects the language

Since the mid-1990s French stations have been required to give a substantial share of their music airtime to French-language songs. The quota is debated constantly, but its effect is clear: French radio cannot simply copy the American charts. It plays French rap, Belgian and Quebec artists and francophone African music, which is why the dial feels familiar to listeners from Dakar to Casablanca.

The public service

Radio France runs France Inter, France Info, France Culture, France Musique and FIP, a station with almost no talk that has fans worldwide. It also maintains orchestras and a choir. Below you can play the French radio stations online that we index — public, commercial and local — free and without an app.