Paris (AFP)

Amazon Prime Video presses on the accelerator in France: the American streaming service has announced four new program projects for France, including two entertainment programs, walking a little more on the flowerbeds of French channels.

Launched three years ago in France, Amazon's service first cautiously advanced on French programs, including the comedy "Deutsch-les-Landes", coldly received by critics, and documentaries about Didier footballers. Deschamps and Raphael Varane.

But the platform, still in the shadow of Netflix, left earlier with a catalog of departure more consistent, begins to materialize its ambitions in France.

Amazon has more than 100 million worldwide subscribers to its Prime offering, which combines advantages related to its online sales activity, and entertainment services (video, music ...).

In France, if its number of subscribers is kept secret, the group has already carved a good place: Prime video has become number two in the video on demand (VoD) market, with 21.8% of French consumers , behind the giant Netflix (56.6%) but ahead of the national champion Canal + Series (20.7%), according to a CNC study published late October.

To consolidate its development, in a reconfiguring landscape and fiery competition (Apple TV +, Disney +, Salto ...), it has unveiled an arsenal of new projects produced specifically for French viewers.

This includes two series whose action takes place, by coincidence, in the France of the 60s, and both planned in 2021.

"Voltaire, Mixte", comedy drama on a high school boys in full shift to the mix, was designed and directed by Marie Roussin ("The Red Bracelets", "A French village" ...). It should last several seasons to end in the political and sexual explosion of May 68.

- Humor and love -

Even more ambitious, "Operations Totems" espionage series mounted by a former "Bureau des Légendes", Olivier Dujols. It will stage in France, Europe and North Africa, two secret agents in the cold war, torn between reason of state and their feelings.

Amazon is also preparing a new game, "The Missing One", for 2020. An "XXL" adventure race through Australia where teams of three celebrities will have to find one of their members hidden in a secret place. Are announced Bigflo and Oli, Robert Pirès, Emmanuel Petit and Marcel Desailly, Tony Parker ...

It will also launch next year the French version of "Love Island", a British "dating" show with phenomenal success across the Channel. With a French star, "symbolizing love", for animator ...

In addition, there will be new comedy shows, a "top secret" project with the artist Orelsan, and the acquisition of numerous non-Amazon films and series that will enrich his catalog.

The group intends to fire any wood. With, as Jennifer Salke, the global leader of Amazon Studios, told AFP, the ambition to produce programs of all kinds and in very diverse formats, focusing on "quality" rather than "the volume".

The projects unveiled on Thursday represent "a real acceleration, which translates concretely" on the screens of users, for Isabelle Bertrand, director of acquisitions for Amazon France. And it doubles as a multiplication of local partnerships (agreement with SFR, launch of the Amazon Channels service with TF1, M6 or Mediawan).

If the group now seems to be clearly hunting on the territory of the traditional actors of TV by creating gambling or "dating" programs, "we see ourselves rather as a complement to the chains, with this advantage of being able to take more risks", says Georgia Brown, head of the original European series.

Could we suddenly see a French talk show tomorrow on Amazon? "We're not there," tempers Thomas Dubois, head of non-fiction programming in France.

© 2019 AFP