Google has agreed to pay €60m to help French newspapers develop their internet presence following two months of negotiations with the country’s president Francois Hollande.

Described as a “historic agreement” by Google chairman Eric Schmidt, the US group will also supply advertising to the websites and pay a share of those revenues, according to the Financial Times.

Hollande had previously threatened to force Google through legislation to pay a share of its revenue from links to articles if it failed to reach a deal with the publishers.