French cinema urges 2027 presidential candidates to make its model a strategic priority, Digi Mart USA News: Four major French film organizations are calling on candidates in the upcoming presidential election to make cinema a “strategic priority,” citing concerns over political criticism of the sector, including from the National Rally (RN). In a manifesto sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, November 4, the organizations, which represent screenwriters, producers and directors, state that “French cinema must be recognized as a strategic asset for France.”
The signatories warn that the French film model is threatened by an “ideological battle.” Director Pierre Jolivet, vice president of the Society of Authors-Directors-Producers (ARP), said, “There is a risk that the far right will show its face more than usual, with a violence toward the film industry that we had never known.” He also expressed concern about the RN’s challenges to the operation of the National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC) and its plans to privatize public broadcasting, adding that culture and cinema in particular have “completely disappeared from political debates.”
Jolivet noted that in early September, President Emmanuel Macron hosted a summit in southern France bringing together leading figures of global cinema to protect the industry from threats posed by artificial intelligence and streaming platforms. “But three weeks later we hit the wall in the face,” he said, pointing to a proposed increase in the value-added tax (VAT) on Canal+ in the 2027 draft budget, which lawmakers ultimately rejected, and a reduction in funding for France Télévisions.
Those two measures affect the two main financiers of French cinema. In mid-October, more than 170 renowned filmmakers, including the Dardenne brothers, Jacques Audiard and Justine Triet, signed an op-ed warning of the risk of weakening what they describe as the most dynamic film industry in Europe.
The manifesto, also signed by the Independent Production Union (SPI), the Society of Women and Men Film Directors (SRF) and the Union of Film Producers (UPC), proposes twelve commitments to defend the French cultural model.
The first commitment calls for enshrining “French and European cultural sovereignty” in the Constitution, which the signatories say would protect the French cultural exception while guaranteeing “an independent public audiovisual service” with stable, independent funding adequate to its missions. Another priority is to safeguard the resources of the CNC, which rely on several earmarked taxes on cinema tickets and on streaming platforms operating in France.
The manifesto proposes reserving these aid funds for companies that are majority French or European owned, which is not currently the case.
Jérôme Enrico, president of the ARP, said that all parties could agree that cinema and culture should not be bought out by Americans or Chinese, and called for protecting French culture from market forces and the dominance of foreign groups. The signatories also urge making the intermittent worker system permanent and strengthening the media chronology, which allows films to be seen in cinemas before television or paid platforms.
“We have the largest number of admissions in Europe, and 40% of spectators who go to see films see French films, which is unique in Europe,” Jolivet said.
According to Jolivet, cinema is a “prototype industry,” and funding films that do not succeed commercially is necessary to produce commercial hits. “In the United States, they make 1,500 films a year, and 300 of them work.
It’s the same everywhere,” he said. The signatories plan to launch a campaign of four short films screened in cinemas early next year.
