The Huffington Post is to launch a new French language version of its website for Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.
Al Huffington Post Maghreb will become the eighth version of the Huffington Post, with editions already launched in the United States, UK, Canada, France, Italy and Japan. A further website is to launch in Germany later this year.
Founder Arianna Huffington made the announcement alongside Alix Etournaud and Fares Mabrouk.
She said: “A month after launching our first Asian edition, in Japan, we're thrilled to be bringing the HuffPost platform to Africa and inviting people in Maghreb to add their voices to the growing global conversation.
“And the way Al Huffington Post Maghreb came to be is the best evidence of the power of that conversation: Alix and Fares were inspired by our French edition, Le HuffPost, and came to us with the idea of expanding to Maghreb, which we’re delighted to be doing.”
The Huffington Post said the site would eventually have three editorial teams with six to eight journalists in each.
Etournaud said: “Arianna has created a new digital journalism, rigorous, inventive and popular, widely opened to contributions. Covering the Maghreb countries with a specific edition of The Huffington Post, including three editorial staffs working together around a common approach, became obvious to me with the Arab Spring and the social media explosion. I am proud to be part of this adventure which will consolidate public debate."
The Huffington Post claims to have more than 50,000 bloggers worldwide with more than 75m unique visitors a month globally.
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