Google, the internet search provider, has been accused of a lack of transparency by French antitrust regulators and given four months to explain the conditions of its ad service.

France Telecom has revealed plans to invest up to €60m in a consortium looking to buy French daily newspaper Le Monde and its online offering.

French newspaper group Le Monde may try to sell its group operations, which include the newspaper, website, and television listings' guide Télérama, The Times has reported. The group has debts up to €125m and the paper lost €25m (£21m) last year, which was its tenth yearly loss in a row.

The EC is to launch a probe into moves in France to give public broadcaster France Télévisions a €450m subsidy funded by private broadcasters; there are suspicions it could contravene European competition law. The levy came into effect in March and will take between 1.5% and 3% of the private broadcasters' ad revenue.

The move has been introduced as part of President Sarkozy's plans to abolish advertising from the state channels in France, but commercial broadcasters have raised concerns about its meaning higher taxes for them as well as allowing France TV to launch new services in direct competition, which they claim affords it an unfair advantage.

A spokesperson for the commission said it was "concerned about the use made of the taxes introduced by the reform and possible overcompensation for public service costs up to 2011 and 2012."

Free magazine Sport has ceased publication after its French publisher, Sport Media & Stratégie, went into administration.

French outdoor advertising operator yesterday reported a 2.9% increase in revenue in 2008 to €2.17 billion. The street furniture and transport divisions fared particularly well.

The company expects, however, that 2009 will be "very challenging".

Nicolas Sarkozy's "big bang" plans to gradually eradicate advertising from France's five state channels began yesterday with a ban on ads during primetime coming into force at 8pm. Ads on the state channels will now only be permitted between 6am and 8pm.

Protests at the plans have been many; journalists' unions have expressed fears that the loss of ad funding may have a detrimental effect on the future of public service broadcasting. However, those in favour hope that the move will free public service broadcasters to concentrate more on public service, while helping commercial broadcasters - which will benefit from the transfer of large amounts of ad revenue in their direction. The PSB channels' lost funding is to be replaced via a tax on commercial TV ad revenue and one on internet and telephone providers.

Financial Times publisher Pearson has completed its Euro 240m sale of French title Les Echos to luxury brand company LVMH.

The move had been unpopular among staff and unions at the French title, who argued that there had not been adequate guarantees of editorial independence, and that Bernard Arnault's ownership would create conflicts of interest for the newspaper because of his other commercial interests.

The agreement includes measures intended to protect editorial independence and retain jobs. The title will also have an ethical charter drawn up by LVMH, Pearson and the journalists on Les Echos.

Financial services group Fimalac, owner of the Fitch credit rating agency, yesterday made a €245 million bid for French newspaper Les Echos, trumping the €240 million offer by billionaire Bernard Arnault's luxury-goods company LVMH.

To the dismay of senior journalists and editors, who helped secure the Fimalac bid, a spokesman for Pearson, which owns Les Echos, said: 'We are aware of the offer.... but point out that we are in exclusive talks with LVMH.'

In protest against the LVMH takeover, journalists at the French title have been on strike three times in recent weeks.

LVMH has confirmed that it is in exclusive talks with Pearson to buy the French business newspaperLes Echos, as Les Echos journalists feared.