Should it win the Elysée in next year’s election, as polls currently predict, the National Rally would likely either make good on that proposal or redirect some of its funding toward other priorities.
“People from the cinema world live in another reality, they are not aware of the financial problems of the French,” said Philippe Ballard, one of the National Rally lawmakers who led the effort to reduce state funding for the entertainment sector.
Ballard said his constituents “roll their eyes” at talk of state-backed cinema at a time when they’re forced to choose between filling up their gas tanks or their refrigerators.
Directors, producers and actors who spoke to POLITICO respond that such a move would torpedo a job-creating industry that, according to one estimate, generated €12.6 billion of value added in 2022, and employs more than 260,000 people. They contend the current system attracts foreign investment, projects French soft power across the globe and challenges American cultural hegemony in the political tradition of Charles de Gaulle.
Famed director Olivier Assayas, whose large productions typically don’t rely on public funding, called attacks against the French film funding “stupid, lame and perfectly counterproductive, even from a nationalist perspective, in terms of global influence and recognition of French cinema.”
“French cinema holds a privileged place in global cinema. Giving it up would obviously be an unspeakable absurdity, no matter how you look at it,” Assayas, who has helmed films featuring major Hollywood stars like Jude Law and Kristen Stewart, told POLITICO.