President Jacques Chirac called for such a station at the height of the Iraq war, complaining that France's anti-war message was being crowded out by images of the conflict being broadcast around the world by US and British networks.
Yet doubts over the project emerged after it was revealed last month that no money had been set aside for it in 2005 state budgets, and that no decision had been taken on how to run the station, which Chirac wanted to go live this year.
"The objective set in this area by the president must be respected. In the battle of images of today - just look at Iraq - our country must be present," Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told an annual ambassadors' conference in Paris.
"We shall evaluate it in the light of the financial means it would need, and how it would fit in with our other audio-visual operators broadcasting outside France. This evaluation will be done quickly, with the Culture Ministry," he said.
French officials differ on whether to create from scratch a rival to operators such as BBC World and Time Warner's CNN, or whether to build it around existing operators such as the RFI radio station and the French-language TV5 global tv station.
The only proposal unveiled so far would see the station held 50-50 by state-run France Televisions and commercial broadcaster TF1, with an annual budget of some 70 million euros ($84.55 million) and 196 full-time staff.
Barnier told ambassadors such a station would help France explain its foreign policy better throughout the world. But he denied it was a reaction to what some have suggested is France's long-term waning influence in world affairs.
"I regret, as you do, these press campaigns on the theme of decline or loss of influence. This strange collective psychoanalysis often astonishes our partners abroad," he said.