France’s film and TV sectors are sounding the alarm over a proposed €47M ($53M) cut in public funds for state broadcaster France Télévisions in 2027.In a joint open letter published on Wednesday, independent producers’ guilds, Le SPI, l’USPA and AnimFrance accused the government of engaging in “a brutal social plan” which could cause irreparable damage to France’s audiovisual sector.
The guilds also said the cuts fly in the face of pledges made at President Emmanuel Macron’s Lumière Summit earlier this month devoted to the future of the moving image.“In the wake of the Lumière Summit, the first international summit dedicated to the future of cinema and the moving image, government decisions are set to plunge the entire sector into deep chaos: after affirming the strategic nature of the image industries and the importance of our cultural sovereignty, the government has chosen to undermine those who create, produce, and distribute these works,” read the letter. It follows in the wake of an interview in the ‘Le Monde’ newspaper on September 18 with France Télévisions President Delphine Ernotte Cunci, in which she said the state broadcaster was a facing a €90M ($100M) cut in its budget for 2027.This was due, she said, to a proposed €47M ($53M) cut in state funds combined with a fall in advertising revenue and the impact of rising inflation.She said the funding situation risked destroying France’s cultural model.“I’m pulling the alarm to safeguard our cultural model,” she said. “What’s emerging is that the foreign platforms will soon account for the biggest investments in French creativity.“That means series and films will be greenlighted, financed, cast, written and conceived by the Americans and the Chinese. Do we want to weaken this industry of creation, of freedom, which employs more people than the car industry?”The proposed France Télévisions budget cuts are part of a larger €54B ($61B) package of spending cuts being proposed by the French government to rein in public debt, which it says is poised to hit a record 121.7% of domestic product (GDP) in 2027.“SPI, USPA, and AnimFrance are fully aware of the state of public finances and the need for everyone to contribute to the collective effort. However, this effort must be managed responsibly and be economically efficient,” the guilds said in their letter. “At a time when overall unemployment is rising alarmingly and recession is looming, the state, as shareholder of France Télévisions, has made a harsh and counterproductive budgetary decision: the planned cutbacks in public broadcasting risk producing the exact opposite of the intended result. This move deals a severe blow to the 700 production companies working with the public broadcaster and will inevitably cause unprecedented social damage within the audiovisual sector.”The guilds reiterated Ernotte Cunci’s comments on the audiovisual industry employing more people than the car industry in France.“The audiovisual sector accounts for 260,000 direct and indirect jobs across France and generates over €12 billion in added value, surpassing both the automotive and textile industries,” read the letter.It added that it was wrong to view state funding for France Télévisions uniquely through the lens of budgetary expenditure, saying it was also an investment.The guilds said that every euro in state funding went onto generate €2.40 within the French economy, with €0.50 of that “flowing back into state coffers”.“Reducing public funding will not result in equivalent savings for the state; instead, it will trigger a destructive downward spiral of fewer jobs, lower social security contributions, reduced tax revenue, and higher unemployment benefit payouts, ultimately yielding no real savings while leaving the country culturally impoverished,” read the letter.
It added that the cuts came at an already difficult time for the audiovisual sector, due to fewer commissions from private broadcasters, the budgets of which have also been hit by falling ad revenue and inflation.
“In practical terms, a further drop in orders and contracts resulting from public austerity measures will immediately impact production companies’ ability to sustain employment. Writers, directors, actors, and staff—whether permanent or on short-term contracts—represent a vast pool of skilled, high-value-added jobs that the proposed budget places in immediate jeopardy. This would mean the direct loss of nearly 10,000 jobs, on top of the 10,000 already lost since 2023,” read guild’s letter.In other woes, not detailed in the letter, figures released by film and TV export body Unifrance earlier this month revealed a collapse in international sales for French shows in 2025 to a ten-year low.Le Spi, Le SPI, l’USPA’s open letter, follows a similar statement published on September 18 in the immediate aftermath of Ernotte Cunci’s interview, from nine film and TV bodies including director’s guild L’ARP, distributors’ organisations DIRE and SDI as well as the screenwriters association SCA.They were equally scathing in their criticisms of the government’s proposed cuts, saying it would be a “devasting blow” for both the TV and cinema industries.The letter also took aim at Macron’s Lumière Summit, which gathered a host of U.S. studio and streamer heads and Hollywood stars in the South of France on September 7, while much of Europe’s independent international film sector was focused rather on the Venice Film Festival in Italy.Macron hosted the event jointly with Korean President Lee Jae Myung, with their respective countries pledging to invest 1 billion euros ($1.16 billion) in the global screen industries from 2027 to 2031.“While the President of the Republic was rolling out the red carpet for American platforms at the “Sommet Lumière” on September 7 and speaking of a “civilizational issue”, we learned just days later that public broadcasting faces unprecedented peril, and with it, our cultural sovereignty,” read their statement. “It is unacceptable for paid American platforms to become, in the near future, one of the primary financiers of French cinema. Audiovisual and cinematic creation is a strategic asset for France, yet this financial decision demonstrates that our government fails to grasp the magnitude of what is at stake. Worse still, it is undermining a common good belonging to the French people and the production of our collective narratives.”
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