Our curated list, current as of August 2026, showcases over 20 of Antenne 2’s highest-rated series. Among Antenne 2’s finest offerings are Les Cinq Dernières Minutes and Jeux Sans Frontières, which debuted in 1958 and 1965, respectively. Antenne 2’s extensive portfolio includes more than 20 shows, spanning the years from 1958 to 1991.




Jeux sans frontières ("Games Without Borders" in French) was a Europe-wide television game show, based on the French programme Intervilles which was first broadcast in 1962. In its original conception, it was broadcast from 1965 to 1999 under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which owned the format. In non French-speaking countries, the show had alternative titles. It is also widely known as "It's a Knockout", the title of the BBC's domestic version and national selection for the programme.

Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.


Le Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at 8:30 pm on the first channel of the ORTF from January 12, 1972 to July 12, 1972, then on the second color channel of the ORTF from September 1972 to December 1974, and finally on Antenne 2 from January 1975 to December 21, 1989. The program returned to France 2 on December 20, 2018 and is hosted by Anne-Sophie Lapix.

Created by French surrealist artist Roland Topor and director Henri Xhonneux, Telecat is a news show parody hosted by a tomcat named Groucha (who always had his arm in plaster) and an ostrich named Lola. It featured a variety of sentient objects and revolved around the idea that the real-life elementary particles known as gluons were “the souls of objects”.

The pragmatic, reserved and refined Maigret investigates murders in his singular unhurried manner and inevitably discovers the truth.


Host Jacques Martin invites different talented children from various backgrounds to showcase their beautiful voices. The participants entertain and wow the audience with their lovely performances.



Oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the Calypso set sail to research far-off cultures and species of aquatic fauna and flora in another of the explorer's nature series, mainly in the Pacific Ocean and in the West Indies.

Télématin is a French breakfast television news show, broadcast on France 2 since January 7, 1985. It is broadcast in Metropolitan France weekdays from 6:30 to 9:00 am CET. TV5 broadcast the show in Canada in its entirety until September 2011: it now shows a 90 minute version between 6:30 and 8:00 am Eastern Time, when the French original version is now 2h30 long. Télématin is hosted by William Leymergie. The show is daily seen by around 40% of the French morning audience, a very high percentage for French TV. In Metropolitan France, the newscasts are presented at 7:00, 7:30 and 8:00, with newsflashes at 6:30 and 8:50, and two press reviews at 7:20 and 8:30. The 6:30, 7:30 and 8:50 newscasts are usually presented by a female reader and the hourly newscasts by a male. The usual readers are Nathanaël de Rinquesen, Sophie Le Saint, Julien Benedetto, Sophie Gastrain, Patrice Romedenne and Frédéric Vion.


The César Awards are cinematographic awards created in 1976 and presented annually in Paris to professionals of the 7th art in various categories to recognize the best French productions. They are often cited as the French equivalent of the Oscars in the United States.


Les Cinq Dernieres Minutes is a crime based French television series
