Jacques Audiard, Justine Triet, the Dardenne brothers and more than a hundred filmmakers are sounding the alarm about the 2027 budget, fearing "an erasure of French cinema"

More than 170 renowned filmmakers warn in a column published Wednesday October 14 in Le Monde about the risk of weakening French cinema due to the doubling of Canal+ VAT and the reduction in funding for France Télévisions in the 2027 draft budget.

“The new finance bill risks causing an unprecedented erasure of French cinema from our screens,” fear the signatories, including several former Palme d’Or winners (the Dardenne brothers, Jacques Audiard, Justine Triet). According to them, these measures “could lead to the disappearance of 80 films each year”.

Preserve the specificity of the French cultural model

A little over a month after the Lumière Summit, bringing together the elite of the global cultural industry in France and calls to preserve the French cultural model, the world of cinema is on alert. “The financing of French cinema rests on two pillars, one public and the other private. The new finance bill proposes provisions which will affect them both”, express the 174 signatories of the forum, who include among them many big names in French cinema.

“France Télévisions would once again see its budget burdened by 47 million euros in 2027,” they explain. “On the other hand, Canal+ would be subject to a doubling of its VAT rate,” the forum continues. This measure, if adopted, has been estimated at 200 million euros in annual shortfall by Canal+ boss Maxime Saada. It would “effectively bury the inter-professional agreement signed on July 28” which provides for an investment by Canal+ of nearly a billion euros over five years, says the forum. This agreement represents around 100 films co-produced by Canal+ every year, professional organizations estimate.

400 films compromised over a period of five years

But the doubling of VAT “would automatically lead to a drop of 750 million euros for cinematographic creation between 2028 and 2032”, continue the signatories. “Over a period of five years, 400 films will not exist,” they add. They claim that the film industry accounts for 260,000 direct and indirect jobs in France, the third country in the world in terms of film production and export. The French model is based on cinemas, television channels and platforms (Netflix, Disney+, etc.), part of whose revenue contributes to the financing of cinema through the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC).

The forum calls for a “cinema law” to “perpetuate the media chronology, regulate artificial intelligence, rethink the financing of public broadcasting or protect the resources and missions of the CNC”. “Fighting to preserve the action of the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC), to restore the means of public broadcasting or to maintain a reduced value added tax (VAT) for all cultural industries, believe the signatories of the Le Monde tribune, is to defend a system and a principle which have made it possible for years to maintain a living and dynamic culture in France.”