Draft 2027 budget: Maxime Saada denounces the doubling of VAT for Canal+

While the 2027 draft budget provides for a doubling of the VAT applicable to pay television, from 10 to 20%, the boss of Canal+ is fighting back. “It’s an absurd decision which makes no economic sense, and therefore it can only be political,” said Maxime Saada this Monday morning on RTL. According to his estimates, this measure could cost the group up to 200 million euros per year.

If Canal+ is largely profitable with 433 million euros in operating profit in the first quarter of 2026, Maxime Saada recalled that this was a result on a global scale, specifying that the situation in France is more difficult. The manager even spoke of a “painfully profitable” activity. “A business manager like me has the responsibility for all of his geographies to be profitable, we cannot find ourselves in a situation of unprofitability (…). We have come very far from disaster several times,” reported the boss of Canal+.

Thus, a doubling of the VAT rate applied to the subscriptions of the paying broadcaster would endanger the financial balance of the group, warned Maxime Saada: “Canal + in France is not able to absorb a shock of 200 million euros.”

And this would not be without consequences for the wallets of its subscribers: “We will pass on the exact amount of VAT on subscriptions,” declared the chairman of the Canal+ board of directors. But “the majority of our subscribers are committed for one year, even two years, we cannot change the price during the subscription,” he added. Furthermore, Maxime Saada threatened employment. “We will necessarily be in a situation where we will have to reduce costs,” he indicated.

For the business leader, “we find ourselves with a decision which destroys all the financing of French cinema” while “a month ago President (Emmanuel) Macron said that we had to preserve the treasure that is the French cultural exception”. “The founding pact of Canal+ from 1984 is a reduced VAT rate, that of culture, and in return for this Canal+ finances cinema well beyond its obligations,” recalled Maxime Saada. If the VAT rate doubled, the group would finance up to “three quarters fewer films”, he warned. The same goes for sport, he added, specifying that Canal+ was today “the leading financier of sport in France”.