Ministers, ladies and gentlemen,
Dear Xavier Bertrand, President of the Regional Council,
Madam Mayor, dear Martine Aubry,
Dear Françoise,
Committee Chairs, dear Bruno Studer, dear Catherine Morin-Desailly,
Ladies and gentlemen parliamentarians,
Ladies and gentlemen elected,
Madam President of the CNC, dear Frédérique Bredin,
Mr. Chairman, dear Rodolphe Belmer,
Dear Laurence Herszberg,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
I have to tell you, I’m very proud to be here.
Proud to see what became Series Mania in such a short time.
Under your leadership, dear Rodolphe, dear Laurence, this festival has established itself in two editions only as a real institution; an event of reference for series creators, actors, producers, directors, screenwriters, technicians, and all the professionals in your sector, from all over the world.
Above all, Series Mania has become a great popular festival.
Lille as a whole has put itself in the colors of the festival:
- Through exhibitions of posters, photos, or costumes by Game of Thrones, Westworld and La Servante Ecarlate, at the Village Festival by Crédit Mutuel
- Through image education workshops, with illustrators, for example.
Lille has reached the stage of Series Mania… but also Lens, Amiens, Dunkerque, Tourcoing, Roubaix, Arras, where screenings have been organized.
And again this year, the public showed up at the rendezvous, more than ever.
My pride is also that the juries of the French and international competitions were mostly female this year.
That the issue of diversity has been highlighted during the three days of the forum that ends tonight.
Thank you, dear Laurence Herszberg, for your commitment to this subject. A subject that fully engages me.
Series are part of our lives, they have a considerable impact on our imaginations: so the French series must represent France as it is, in its diversity.
And to have diversity on screen, you need diversity in the ranks: in the ranks of screenwriters, actresses and actors, directors and directors… in the ranks of all professions!
I am also proud of such a model of cooperation, among elected representatives of all stripes, at the service of the same ambition; at the service of their territory and its influence.
Dear Xavier Bertrand, dear Martine Aubry: thank you for this example.
Thank you for providing additional evidence that the attractiveness of a territory also depends – and I would even say that it depends first – on its cultural richness.
Because cultural wealth is simply wealth.
And this cultural wealth is in our territories. Our biggest festivals are not in Paris, but in Cannes, Avignon, Arles, Angoulême… and now in Lille.
Series Mania makes us proud, because this festival shows how much France is a land of series.
And if France is a land of series, a land of shootings, recognized as such throughout the world, it is mainly thanks to the audiovisual tax credit.
Last year, it created 15,000 jobs in all regions of France. More than 1600 hours of programmes have benefited from it, generating €1.1 billion in spending in the territory.
Like so many other series, «Une île», which will be presented tonight in French competition, would not have been possible without this tax credit.
France is a land of series, and I want it to be even more so.
We need to defend and encourage our cultural diversity.
Defend it, first, by changing our audiovisual regulation.
- By modernizing our means of action.
- Rebalancing the rules that apply to historical audiovisual players and new entrants.
- By integrating services installed in other Member States into our virtuous creative finance model, including its tax component.
It is normal that these actors are subject to the same rules as the others, and that they also finance French and European creation.
It is the foundation of the cultural model to which we are all attached.
And that is the meaning of the copyright directive, which was adopted yesterday by the European Parliament.
We were waiting for that vote—
For weeks, the President of the Republic, the Minister of European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau, and the entire government were on the front line to defend this directive.
For weeks I have been meeting with my counterparts and European parliamentarians.
To raise awareness, to mobilize, to convince.
Yesterday, the wait was heavy.
And what a relief it was for all of us to discover the results of the vote!
This is a huge victory for Europe.
Two months before an important election for Europe that we want to rebuild, this vote is an answer to all those who no longer believe in it.
To all those who no longer believe in his ability to protect us, to defend our cultural model and our specificities.
To all those who have lost sight of the fact that union makes us stronger.
Europe is our best protection: this vote reminded us.
Despite intense and unprecedented pressure from the digital giants, despite massive social media disinformation campaigns, Europe has held its own.
Europe has not given in.
Europe has resisted.
The Member States and peoples of Europe have seized the historic opportunity before us: to bring copyright into the digital age.
To evolve unbalanced power relations.
To defend our values and interests; our European companies and citizens; our artists and journalists; our authors and creators.
We fought for them, with them.
This directive will not change anything for Internet users, but it will change the lives of millions of creators.
It includes major advances:
It gives Europe a strong legal framework.
To recognize creation as one of its pillars.
And to preserve its sovereignty and cultural model, based on the recognition and fair remuneration of its creators.
- It first enshrines the obligation for platforms to properly remunerate the creators whose works they distribute.
- It also enshrines the right of authors to fair and proportional remuneration.
- It also creates a neighbouring right for publishers and news agencies, which will enable them to obtain better remuneration for the online reproduction of their articles and thus better remuneration for journalists.
This is a first step towards greater accountability of platforms; towards a better sharing of the value associated with the dissemination of works online, for the benefit of creators.
Tomorrow, Youtube will have to properly remunerate the creators whose works are broadcast on its platform.
Perhaps the platforms could try to circumvent the rule if it only affected one or two countries.
Perhaps they could give up a few tens of millions of users.
But they cannot turn their backs on Europe.
That is why this text had to be voted on by Europe, and not just by a State.
Because to face the digital giants, our only effective and credible protection is Europe.
I would like to warmly thank all those in France, in Brussels and throughout Europe who took part in this fight for more than 26 months.
I want to have a word here for my predecessor, Françoise Nyssen, whom I see among us—
Thank you, dear Françoise, for tirelessly working with our European partners for months.
I would also like to thank the Members of the European Parliament who have worked tirelessly on this text; I am thinking, of course, of Axel Voss, the rapporteur of the text and Jean-Marie Cavada, the shadow rapporteur. I am also thinking of the other French parliamentarians, who overwhelmingly supported the text, including Virginie Rozière, Pervenche Berès, Marc Joulaud, Patrick Le Hyaric and José Bové.
And thank you all for your tireless mobilization.
I’ve seen your stands, your videos, your leaflets…
Until the last minute, in Strasbourg yesterday, you were present.
We owe this victory to your collective mobilization.
This victory is one more proof that we are advancing! May Europe advance!
A year ago, we celebrated the adoption of the SMA Directive – Audiovisual Media Service.
This year is the second big win.
This is a new step.
And I want us to focus on the next, without wasting any time.
I want us to transpose the copyright directive and bring it into force as soon as possible.
With respect to neighbouring rights, this transposition is already underway, thanks to Senator Assouline’s bill, which was unanimously adopted at first reading in the Senate, thank you, Dear Catherine Morin-Desailly. Patrick Mignola, whom I would like to thank here, will put it in the National Assembly on May 9. I hope that the National Assembly will be as unanimous as it is, and I know that I can count on the efficiency and involvement of President Studer, dear Bruno.
The rest of the directive will be transposed into the audiovisual law, which I will present to the Council of Ministers in the summer.
But this law will be broader.
It will contain an important component on the transformation of public broadcasting.
I want a public broadcaster that adapts to the challenges of digital technology; that has a real ambition to better meet the expectations and needs of our citizens; that is at the forefront, in the quality and reliability of its information, as in its support for an innovative audiovisual creation, as it is presented here at Séries Mania.
I want a stronger public broadcaster, which becomes the reference in Europe.
This legislation will also allow us to relaunch the fight against piracy.
For too long, public action has focused on those who download illegally.
We haven’t paid enough attention to those who broadcast illegally.
They are the ones who organize piracy; they are the ones who prosper this plunder.
Today, the answer is too partial.
We only tackle peer-to-peer downloading, while piracy is 80% by streaming – streaming, in good French – or by direct downloading.
It is these modes of piracy that we will attack, by directly targeting pirate sites, including:
- entrust HADOPI with the task of characterizing pirate sites by publishing blacklists;
- prevent, through more effective court decisions, the reappearance of mirror sites.
I would like to take this opportunity to commend the work of Denis Rapone and his teams.
I also announce that the Conseil Supérieur de la Propriété Littéraire et Artistique, HADOPI and the CNC will jointly launch in the coming days a “Mission of promotion and supervision of technologies of recognition of content”.
In particular, it should ensure the effectiveness of these tools, which play a central role in protecting works on content sharing platforms.
It is essential if Article 17 of the directive adopted yesterday is to have full effect.
There is no time to waste on this.
As you know, the forthcoming law will also allow us to transpose another European directive: the Directive on audiovisual media services.
With the SMA directive, new players will contribute, like others, to the financing and dissemination of French creation.
We will integrate foreign platforms, free or paid, into our funding model for audiovisual creation, just like any French broadcaster.
A virtuous model in which those who disseminate works finance those who create them.
The directive will also require platforms to broadcast at least 30% of European works.
This is a great opportunity for the visibility and circulation of our works throughout Europe.
This is an opportunity to give our fellow citizens access to European culture.
Because Europe exists primarily through its culture.
Because European nations, beyond conflicts and reconciliations, have never ceased to converse: in the language of their intellectuals, the language of their artists, the language of their creators. Europe is Zweig and Picasso, Kundera and Schiller. Europe has made its artists, its authors, its composers, all its creators who saw in the borders of our continent invitations to cross them. To exchange, to dialogue. Europe is about co-productions, without which the festival that welcomes us, and our entire audiovisual landscape, would not be so rich and so diverse.
Europe was founded around its culture and we will rebuild it through culture. That is the vision of the President of the Republic. The ADM and copyright guidelines will help us make this ambition a reality.
For the transposition of the SMA Directive, my first concern will be to reinforce high levels of investment in film production and audiovisual production.
It will also be necessary to guarantee the diversity and sustainability of independent production and the proportional remuneration of authors.
It is a question of evolving with an entirely new competitive environment; but above all of preserving our model as protector of our cultural ambition.
More broadly, there are many debates about the relationship between broadcasters and producers.
Some propose a very extensive liberalization, as the Autorité de la concurrence in its report released a few weeks ago.
Many point to the great complexity of our regulations.
Our parliamentarians, in particular, have alerted us to this.
I am thinking in particular of Aurore Bergé, whose report on audiovisual regulation in the digital age has enlightened us on this subject, as has the work of the Senate Committee on Culture, Education and Communication.
This is both a cultural and an economic challenge – I remind you that audiovisual and film represent 0.8% of our GDP.
This is why, together with the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire, we have decided to undertake a mission to explore possible avenues of evolution of the legislative and regulatory framework, and best prepare the transposition of the SMA directive.
It will be entrusted to Laetitia Recayte and Dominique Boutonnat.
They are with us today: I greet them and thank them for accepting this beautiful mission!
Integrating digital players into our model also involves rebalancing the tax system that affects them between historical and new entrants.
We must ensure that all those who publish audiovisual media services, on the one hand, and all those who offer Internet access for viewing audiovisual content, on the other hand, contribute to creation, each in their category, according to the same rules.
In each case, it is a matter of offering the same service: broadcasting content in the first, allowing access to that content in the second.
It is an issue of tax fairness, technological and economic neutrality, but also of simplification, to guarantee funding for creation that is clearly understandable, legitimate and adapted to new uses and new modes of dissemination.
However, it is not enough to modernize our funding model for audiovisual creation. We must encourage, accompany and support this creation.
The issue is both industrial and cultural.
The battle for content is the great battle of our time.
We have all the talents in France to meet this challenge.
They need our support.
This is the meaning of the Series Plan that the CNC is currently deploying.
I would like to thank Frédérique Bredin, President of the CNC and all the professionals for the work they have done in this context.
This Series Plan must address several issues:
- We must support risk-taking, original creation. And we must adapt to new uses, better support shorter formats, particularly appreciated by young audiences.
This is why the bonus provided by the CNC for the first series of 52 minutes will be extended to shorter formats, up to 20 minutes.
- We also need to be able to produce the second seasons faster, which the public is looking forward to – producing them even before the premiere. This is a big risk-taking. That’s why the CNC will set up a specific bonus of 25% dedicated to the second seasons.
- Finally, we must ensure that our series export even more, that they are aimed directly at the international public.
Since the global success of a series often comes down to its design, we will therefore provide an additional 25% support to producers when substantial international pre-financing is withdrawn.
This plan must be continued, amplified.
There will be a “Season 2” at this “Plan Séries”.
Discussions continue on issues related to writing and development.
I asked that we focus particularly on writing: it must be valued in the production budget, in the remuneration of screenwriters and more generally of all authors, in the management of contractual practices – which remains for the moment insufficient – or in the training of professionals.
Because artists, authors and creators must be at the heart of all our cultural policies.
We have to ask ourselves how they fit into our society.
I hear their concerns, their lack of recognition.
The professionals of the series world are not exempt from it.
To answer them, I wanted to start a reflection on the author and the act of creation.
It must enable us to find the most favourable framework for the development of creation and cultural diversity in the coming years.
As I announced a few days ago at the Paris Book Fair, I decided to entrust a prospective mission on the subject to Bruno RACINE.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
I could have talked to you for a long time about my passion for The Bureau of Legends; my impatience as to whether or not we will find Malotru for a fifth season...
I could have talked to you for a long time about my desire to “watch bulimically” – I translated, but those of you who watch many series will have understood what anglicism I am referring to… (binge-watching).
To watch bulimically, the programming of this year’s festival, ever richer, ever more attached to reflect the world as it is, its complexity.
I could have talked to you a long time, too, about my admiration for the success – or should I say the phenomenon – of SKAM France, whose teams were present here a few days ago…
Because a series that speaks to young people, that speaks like young people, that chooses a totally innovative, multi-platform mode of distribution, that has integrated social networks and plays with them: it’s a real pride.
And it is all the more a pride when it comes to public service, dear Delphine!
All of us here want to continue to watch series of such inventiveness, such creativity.
Series that showcase France on screens around the world.
So we have to make sure they can continue to be created.
We will protect the financing of our series.
And we will better accompany their creators.
These are my commitments today.