It is a major element of national policy in France to enhance French influence and interests by promoting the language and culture around the world, and that is a key reason for building substantial French language databases for the national Minitel viewdata system. Not much point in building the databases if they are not accessible to foreigners, and so Intelmatique, the body formed to promote the Minitel system, has teamed up with the Infonet international network service of Computer Sciences Corp, El Segundo, California to launch the service in the US. Databases available on Minitel include BBC World Reporter and the USA Today newspaper. Infonet will promote the service to US-based companies that use French.
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