How Le Monde in English finally broke even with AI and subscriptions

Le Monde in English, the newspaper’s English-language digital edition, aims to bring the French perspective on the world to the global stage. 

A team of 10 journalists and translators – eight at Le Monde's headquarters in Paris and two at its Los Angeles bureau – work around the clock to curate and select articles from its French edition and to translate, edit and publish them for readers around the world. 

Launched on the eve of France's 2022 presidential elections, it now shows signs of economic viability, says Elvire Camus, its editor-in-chief.

“We had given ourselves five years to break even. We are one year ahead of schedule,” she told The Connexion.

It now has a tried-and-tested model which allows it to offer its content in English without losing money on this, thanks to web subscriptions and the use of AI tools.

It has been a long-standing ambition, dating to the late 1960s when it launched The Weekly Selection, its first venture into English-language news publishing, before later pursuing partnerships with The Guardian and The New York Times.

We spoke with Ms Camus about the newspaper’s struggles to find a viable business model for reaching anglophone audiences, the selection and translation of articles, differences between American and French journalism, and why France remains so attractive to readers.

Why did previous attempts by Le Monde to publish in English fail?

Le Monde has always aimed to address the entire world, not just the francophone community. It really boils down to costs – with an 's', because there are many.

In 1969, we launched The Weekly Selection, a weekly English-language print supplement that attracted 10,000 subscribers. However, producing a weekly print edition, securing advertising and distributing physical copies worldwide proved far costlier than a digital subscription-based model.

In the 2010s, the newspaper’s management seriously explored creating an English edition but quickly realised the production costs would be prohibitive.

Could Le Monde in English have failed economically?

You and I are very aware of the economic reality of the news business. 

Making money is not a given, even though we were confident in our model.

There were two aspects to this project: the editorial side, about which I had no concerns given the quality of Le Monde’s journalism, and the cost-effectiveness of running an English-language homepage.

This is where DeepL, a global translation platform powered by artificial intelligence, came into play. 

We used its model during our first few years and found that the copy was solid enough to allow a team to work from it. 

It allows us to publish a significant number of articles and continuously update the website. 

We now use a version of ChatGPT designed for Le Monde content, but the process remains the same.

Who is Le Monde in English's readership?

Many of our readers are based in France.One third are located in the United States, primarily in California, with many others in Canada, Northern Europe and the United Kingdom. Among our subscribers, there is a majority of Americans. 

If you are abroad, you can subscribe solely to Le Monde in English. If you are in France, you must subscribe to a French Le Monde package that includes Le Monde in English.

Le Monde has had partnerships with  The Guardian (1971–2017) and The New York Times (2001–2009), including their articles in its French edition. Should our readers understand Le Monde as their French equivalent?

It is not that simple. One could say it is an equivalent because it is a major national newspaper. However, the resources and staffing levels are not the same as those of The New York Times.

Le Monde in English is a mirror of the French Le Monde. 

We want to make Le Monde accessible to non-French speakers. 

We cover global and French news, but also all of Le Monde’s specific features: exclusive investigations, lifestyle, the Intimacy section and the L’Époque supplement. We are not limited to diplomacy and geopolitics.

How do you select your articles?

Every morning, we examine all the articles planned by the French website.

We select based on the news agenda, Le Monde’s original angles, editorial diversity and our processing capacity. 

Sometimes we prefer a unique feature article over yet another news piece. Our team has translated approximately 50% of all articles produced by Le Monde.

Can you describe your translation process?

We work with an initial translation by ChatGPT, followed by post-editing by professional translators, and finally proofreading by Le Monde editors. 

The editors who do the proofreading are all bilingual and native English speakers, with the exception of myself.

At The Connexion, we find the writing style to be very academic. It does not follow the conventions of English-language journalism. What is your response to
this observation?

Our approach is not to transform Le Monde into an American news outlet, but to ensure that non-French-speaking readers can follow us and understand how Le Monde writes its articles. 

American journalism is much more direct and has little in common with French journalism in terms of style. 

It would be a mistake to replicate the style of The New York Times or the BBC.

How do you adapt Le Monde’s style for English-speaking readers?

Our raison d'être is to provide the French perspective on global news and to show our journalism to people accustomed to American or English-language journalism. When I started Le Monde in English, my goal was to find a solution for adapting our distinctly French journalism to American audiences, our priority market. We have received feedback from readers who appreciate this slightly more literary journalism, which is freer in its formats.

How much are foreign readers interested in French politics?

They are interested, particularly on major issues such as pension reform. 

People want to understand what kind of country this is, where people do not want to work two more years even though life expectancy has increased and most other countries have pushed back their retirement age. 

Many readers did not understand Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the Assemblée nationale.

France’s next presidential election will also be closely followed.

What about distinctly French topics such as the Alloncle report on public broadcasting  [which looked at its neutrality, funding and organisation, proposing reforms] or the crisis at the Grasset literary publishing company [involving internal management disputes, staff departures and tensions over editorial direction and governance]?

Le Monde in English must reflect the French Le Monde. It is not only about what interests our readers in the United States, but about all important topics. If ten journalists work on a subject for ten days, we cannot overlook it.

Le Monde published about 20 articles on the Alloncle report. We decided to translate one editorial from the newspaper because it was a very good way to explain a somewhat complicated French news story by providing context.

Much like what you did with Brexit in 2016.

The Brexit editorial was one of several one-off articles translated into English prior to the launch of Le Monde in English. Brexit was an absolutely seismic event in Europe. The UK and France are historic allies. 

It was an event whose significance extended beyond France so we thought it would be pertinent to share our analysis with the British public and beyond.

Le Monde did the same for our investigation into Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria, as well as articles on Edward Snowden’s bombshell revelations and the Panama Papers.

What is the value for our readers in reading Le Monde in English?

It provides the vision and voice of French journalists at Le Monde on global news and the major issues that shape political and economic decisions, as well as highly detailed coverage of France.

Why does France generate so much curiosity?

There is something about this country, its heritage and its politics that generates curiosity.

A certain je ne sais quoi...

There are also all the clichés about France: the French do not wash, they breastfeed too much or not enough, and so on. 

Child-rearing is a topic that greatly interests American readers and many others. France is a country that gives the impression of being at the centre of the world, but is it really anymore? I am
not certain.

In any case, it remains one of the most visited countries in the world, with a history that creates narratives and clichés that we are quite happy to address either to confirm or debunk.

Is it reductive to describe Le Monde as a newspaper for professors and diplomats?

Yes. Le Monde has changed significantly, and for the better. It is a newspaper that has come out of its shell thanks to the internet. We are read by all age groups, and we address our readers directly.

They are no longer just a handful of French elites.

More newspapers following with English-language versions

Le Monde is not the only French newspaper to have an English-language version. Financial daily Les Echos and right-wing Le Figaro launched their own English-language editions, Les Echos in English and Le Figaro in English, in 2026 and 2025 respectively, offering a daily selection of articles translated into English.

Both newspapers emphasised many of the same points as Ms Camus.

The curated selections provide international readers with a deeper understanding of French affairs – politics, society and major events – through the lens of each newspaper’s editorial line. Both English-language offerings were made possible by advances in artificial intelligence.

Unlike Le Monde, Le Figaro does not have an in-house English-language team and has outsourced the activity to Worldcrunch, a Paris-based media company that produces English-language editions of international journalism. 

Les Echos, meanwhile, operates in a similar way to Le Monde, using a double-editing system that combines ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude AI system with proofreading by anglophone journalists.

Socialist-leaning Libération does not yet have an English-language edition
but told The Connexion it plans to increase the number of articles translated into English.

Le Monde, Le Figaro and Les Echos join other French media organisations with English-language operations, most notably the news agency AFP, television channels France 24 and Euronews, and radio broadcaster RFI.