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Agence France-Presse

international news agency headquartered in Paris

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ40464 ↗
Source-derived summary

Agence France-Presse (AFP; French pronunciation: [aʒɑ̃s fʁɑ̃s pʁɛs]) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Its origins date back to 1835, when it was founded as Havas, the world's oldest news agency. In August 1944, following the Liberation of Paris, it was reorganized as Agence France-Presse to succeed Havas.

AFP's mission is to provide fast, comprehensive, impartial, and verified coverage of global events across all fields and formats, including video, photography, text, infographic, and audio. It collects, verifies, cross-checks, and distributes information in a neutral, factual form, intended for direct use by all types of media (radio, television, press, websites). It also serves as a source and alert service for major companies and public administrations.

AFP operates one of the world's most extensive networks of correspondents. With 2,400 employees representing 100 nationalities, it maintains an editorial presence in 260 cities across 150 countries. Its main regional headquarters are located in Nicosia, Hong Kong, Washington, D.C., and Montevideo. The agency publishes stories, videos, photos, and graphics in French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and German.

Editorial summary

“Agence France-Presse” enters the record as international news agency headquartered in Paris. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Agence, France-Presse and international can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1835, 1944—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1835-10-22, 1944-08-20—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Agence, France-Presse and international.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Agence France-Presse” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Agence, France-Presse and international provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q40464. VIAF identifies the subject as 147151020. The Library of Congress control number is n50060979. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1835 and 1944.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Agence France-Presse”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Agence France-Presse primary sources, Agence France-Presse archive and Agence research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Agence France-Presse”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Agence France-Presse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.