Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Minister of Culture, Takes note with satisfaction of the decision of the Constitutional Council of 21 October 2021 concerning the law on the regulation and protection of access to cultural works in the digital age, which has deemed that virtually all of the law complies with the Constitution.

Seized by more than 60 senators who criticized section 25 of the act, to raise the ceiling on the financial penalty that may be imposed on certain audiovisual service publishers in the event of a breach of their obligation to contribute to the development of cinematographic and audiovisual works, the Constitutional Council has found that the repression of the breach of this obligation is well suited to the general interest objective of promoting cultural creation. It also found that, by punishing the breach of this obligation by a financial penalty proportional to the amount of the annual contribution, the legislator introduced a penalty the nature of which is linked to that of the infringement, thus validating the sanction mechanism provided for. On the other hand, it censored the tripling of the penalty in the case of a repeat offence, considering that the legislator had not sufficiently defined the conditions under which the repeat offence could be established.

The Constitutional Council also automatically censored three of the provisions that had been introduced by amendment by the senators, as they were not related, even indirectly, to the original bill. It thus censored paragraph II of Article 12, which specifies the standards to be met by certain televisions and adapters enabling the reception of ultra-high definition digital terrestrial television services, Article 16, which modifies the conditions for the resumption of regional and local stalls on networks other than satellite, and Article 18, which requires distributors of high definition services to resume, also in high definition, local digital terrestrial television services.

The Minister of Culture welcomes the outcome of this process which will allow the promulgation of this law essential to the defense of French creation.