The amount, lump sum, that AFP will receive under this agreement has not been disclosed.

This is the first partnership concluded by a press agency under the European directive on rights related to copyright, legislation adopted in March 2019. France was the first country to transpose this directive into its law national that year.

Around the world, the issue of sharing income from the web is at the heart of the tensions between the web giants and the media.

"This is an agreement that covers the whole of the EU, in all AFP languages, including in countries that have not transposed the directive," said AFP CEO Fabrice Fries, who called this agreement "pioneer".

AFP produces and distributes multimedia content to its clients in six languages ​​around the world.

"This is the culmination of a long struggle" which began during the negotiations on the European directive on neighboring rights, added Mr Fries.

"We fought for the agencies to be fully eligible. The difference with a commercial partnership is that a neighboring rights contract is intended to be sustainable," continued the CEO of AFP.

"We sign this agreement to turn the page and move forward. We are here to show that the players can get along and that we have found a solution," Sébastien Missoffe, general manager of Google in France, told reporters from AFP, as negotiations appeared to be stalled in the summer.

"This allows us to open up other subjects," added the leader in France of the American digital giant.

The agreement on neighboring rights should be supplemented "very soon" by "a program on the fight against disinformation," said the two companies in a joint statement.

AFP will notably offer fact-checking training courses on several continents.

After initially reluctant to pay French newspapers for the use of their content, Google ended up signing a framework agreement in early 2021, suspended since, with part of the press in France for a period of three years, this which did not prevent him from being fined in mid-July with a fine of 500 million euros from the French Competition Authority for not having negotiated "in good faith".

Google has appealed, and at the same time continues negotiations with certain French media groups.

© 2021 AFP