Good morning, everyone.
Sixty years.
The Ministry of Culture has existed for sixty years.
For sixty years he has been working to ensure that everyone has access to art and culture.
Sixty years, which give us the opportunity to reaffirm its importance and the need for an ambitious cultural policy.
This is the will of the President of the Republic: he came to express it here, two months ago, in the Court of Honour of the Royal Palace.
This department must speak to everyone in all the territories.
Because culture emancipates and brings together.
It is what gives everyone the feeling of belonging to something greater than themselves: it is what gives us access to the universal.
It is an essential lever for jobs, activity and attractiveness, and it promotes our country.
Above all, it is what brings us together, what keeps us together.
It is our common language, our collective values, our shared emotions.
It is the cement of our society.
So perhaps more than ever, culture is a responsibility.
Our responsibility.
This is the spirit that guides the budget of the Ministry of Culture for the year 2020.
It is fully in line with the government’s fiscal and economic policy.
In 2020, we will reach the lowest level of government deficit in 20 years, at 2.2%. Taxes will fall by more than 10 billion. And the State budget will be at the service of commitments kept.
The budget of the Ministry of Culture is a budget of priorities, serving everyone.
It is a budget consistent with the project of transformation of public action, carried by the President of the Republic.
Our fellow citizens must feel the effects of our action in their daily lives.
This transformation, the Prime Minister and his government are mobilized to make it happen.
For my part, I am firmly committed to its completion.
I want this ministry to be stronger, even more anchored in our territories, closer to the French, and more in touch with the changes in our society.
His budget for the coming year must take him in that direction.
In total, more than €14 billion will be spent on cultural policies next year in the state budget.
Excluding tax expenditures and budget dedicated to culture in other ministries, this corresponds to 8.2 billion resources under the Ministry of Culture.
It will benefit from an increased budget of €73 million.
Our appropriations will increase by 43 million euros next year, to which must be added 30 million euros which will be mobilized under the programme of investments of the future.
This is an effort, in the context of the budget as we know it.
An effort that forces us to be consistent, to transform, to achieve results.
And to achieve results, we need to set priorities.
Clear, clear, precise.
The budget I am presenting today serves four priorities, which I presented to Cabinet on July 24.
It is at the service of civic emancipation; at the service of the cohesion and attractiveness of territories; at the service of artists and creators (iii) and at the service of our cultural sovereignty (iv).
Our first objective is to promote the emancipation of the citizens of this country through arts and culture.
This obviously involves the generalization of arts and cultural education for all children and young people from 3 to 18 years, as the President of the Republic promised. This is the 100% BEC target. The challenge of artistic and cultural emancipation goes further: it concerns all people, regardless of their situation, age or place of life. It is the sense of the creation of a new direction within the ministry, whose mission will be to steer the policy of transmission and emancipation through arts and culture. It is also the direction of the rise of the Pass Culture.
It gives young people the freedom and autonomy to chart their own cultural path.
The Culture pass was first and foremost an idea: 500€, at 18, to access cultural offers.
We are in the process of making this a reality, in the form of a geolocation application.
In June, we launched the second wave of experimentation, with 150,000 young people, in the most varied territories, in 14 departments.
And we took a new step by launching the Culture Pass Society in July.
Next year, an additional €10 million, or a total of nearly €40 million, will allow us to go even further:
We will multiply the number of eligible young people; we will open experimentation to new territories; and we will constantly make new improvements.
The Prime Minister has also entrusted to me a mission to the deputy Aurore Bergé, whose objectives will be to better define the contours, principles of action and means of the policy of artistic and cultural emancipation for all ages.
In all, more than 200 million euro will be spent on measures to promote access to art and culture for all.
Citizen empowerment also requires access to quality and plural information, which is at the heart of our country’s democratic life.
This is the challenge of the transformation plan of Agence France Presse.
It must allow it to look to the future and consolidate its economic model. The State fully supports this plan, with an additional €6 million dedicated to AFP.
This is also the purpose of the revision of the Bichet Act, which was passed by Parliament in the summer.
It aims to modernize the distribution of the press, while continuing to guarantee access for our citizens to a diversity of publications throughout the country. It also extends these fundamental principles for the first time to the digital distribution of the press.
Finally, this is the goal of the media and information literacy plan.
It aims to fight against the manipulation of information and hate online, in line with the law against infox and the bill proposed by Laetitia Avia. It will be endowed with 3 million euros next year.
The second objective is to make arts and culture the drivers of cohesion and attractiveness in our territories.
To do this, we must first and foremost renew, modernize and reinvent local cultural public services.
Adapt them to new customs, new expectations, new desires of our fellow citizens.
The deployment of Micro-folies throughout France is emblematic of this ambition.
I announced that we would accelerate it, reaching 1,000 micro-follies by 2022, in all territories, including those with less equipment. We have a target, for example, of opening 200 in rural areas.
The Ministry of Culture will allocate 3 million euros in 2020.
It will also continue its work to help libraries open more and offer more.
An additional €4 million will be mobilized for the “offer more” component.
I want to make our libraries not only places of reading, but places of culture; not only places of visiting, but places of life; not only places of passage, but places of brewing.
I want to turn them into places of digital mediation, cultural public service houses, offering new services to our fellow citizens – artistic, educational, social – to accompany them in their daily lives.
The resources dedicated to the “open more” component are sustainable to the tune of 88 million euros.
In addition, the ministry will strengthen the funding of the structures labeled for the dissemination of creation: our famous labels, which mesh the territory.
In order to strengthen the decision-making capacity and resources of the Ministry’s decentralized services, nearly 60 devices will be decentralized as close as possible to the realities on the ground. I am thinking of the labelling of cultural centres of encounter, of cities and countries of art and history, and the granting of aid to companies and festivals.
We are still working on this, particularly to clarify the modalities of this devolution.
Because yes, culture lives in our territories.
Culture, especially our heritage.
The French are deeply attached to it. We saw it last weekend, with the European Heritage Days, which attracted more than 12 million visitors to France. With the success of the Heritage Lotto. With the unprecedented mobilization in favor of Notre-Dame de Paris.
Heritage is what comes to us from past centuries, but also what we transmit to future centuries.
It is a part of our history, our memory, our identity.
He is the face of France.
Everywhere in our territories, it is a lever for revitalization and cohesion; a driver of economic development, tourism attractiveness, growth and employment.
It is up to us to value and protect it.
The Ministry of Culture will spend €1 billion next year on the restoration of historic monuments, museums, archaeology, archives and architecture.
Once again, priority will be given to the territories: appropriations for historic monuments will increase by €7 million, through redeployment within the «Heritage» programme, to reach €338 million.
This increase will be allowed by the Louvre’s financial trajectory, with which an experiment is launched in 2020 to ease the management of its payroll and jobs, allowing it to develop its activity.
This experiment will also concern the Palace of Versailles from 2021.
Through the flexibilities that will be put in place and included in the performance contracts signed with the State, these institutions will be able to: on the one hand, enrich and diversify their cultural offer and improve the reception of audiences; to consolidate their financial trajectory by increasing their own resources through the development of new activities.
The Louvre will see its endowment reduced by 11 million euros, redeployed in favour of historical monuments.
Thanks to this, the ministry will be able to: support the investments of the National Monuments Centre in favor of historical monuments in the territories for 3 million euros; to continue the EUR 5 million ramp-up of the incentive fund for municipalities with low resources; to finance, up to EUR 2 million, a fire safety plan for the 87 classified cathedrals belonging to the State.
I took the initiative immediately after the fire in Notre-Dame de Paris.
In accordance with the law that has just been passed and promulgated, if the works of conservation and restoration of the cathedral are not included in the budget of the ministry, it is because they will be entirely financed by the national subscription dedicated in 2020. EUR 104 million has actually been returned to the State to date.
Another major heritage restoration project is the Château de Villers-Cotterêts.
Our goal is to open an international French language city there.
We will spend 43 million euros on this, including 30 million euros under the future investments programme.
The third objective of this budget is to put artists and creators at the heart of our cultural policies.
It is to make France a land of artists and creators.
I want them to be better supported throughout their journey. This budget illustrates that.
The measures of the National Fund for Permanent Employment in the Show will be adapted: they will be simplified and made more incentive. To support this development and the growth of this fund, its resources will increase by 5 million euros next year.
The mechanism to compensate artists-authors for the increase in the CSG will be made permanent in 2020.
The residence policy will be reoriented and amplified.
In order to identify long-term responses to fight against the precariousness of artists, I entrusted a prospective and multidisciplinary mission on the author and the creative act to Bruno Racine. It must enable us to find the most favourable framework for the development of creation and cultural diversity in the coming years. He’ll get back to me by the end of the year.
Supporting creators in their careers means supporting them in their training. In 2020, we will invest €8 million in the Ministry’s higher education institutions.
We will continue the effort in favour of large-scale equipment for the dissemination of creation. 6.5 million euros will go towards the continuation of the project of Cité du Théâtre, and 6 million euros will go to the project of relocation of the reserves of the National Center of Plastic Arts and National Furniture in Pantin.
Supporting artists means supporting not only creation and dissemination, but also the structuring of creative and cultural industries.
They will be accompanied, in particular by: strengthening the participatory loans managed by the Institute for the Financing of Cinema and Cultural Industries. And the investment fund of 225 million euros, announced in May by the President of the Republic. Managed by Bpifrance, it will be dedicated to the development of innovative companies in the cultural and creative industries, particularly in film and audiovisual production.
More specifically, we will accompany the music sector with the creation of the National Music Centre.
This “common house of music” has long been a project. In 2020, we will finally make it a reality. The bill that makes it possible to create it should be adopted very soon. The State will support its launch by increasing by 7.5 million euros the credits it allocates to the CNM project from the year 2020, in addition to the credits already mobilized for the structures that are destined to join it. These appropriations are intended to increase over the next few years.
These additional efforts are already leading to a public budget for the sector, which will reach 50 million euro in its first year of existence. In addition to these amounts, direct contributions from the sector, in particular the collective management bodies
I invite them to strengthen their voluntary contribution to accompany the increase in public effort. That is how we will work together to achieve an ambitious multi-year roadmap.
I will start discussions next week with partners who share the State’s ambition for the music sector.
The fourth objective is to reaffirm our cultural sovereignty.
In the face of a digital transformation that disrupts economic models and cultural practices, we must show a spirit of resistance.
It is this “spirit of resistance” that guides the reform of the tax system for financing film, audiovisual production and video games.
In order to ensure equity and economic neutrality between the actors, the rate of taxes on TV publishers and video services will be harmonised up to 5.15%.
This reform will consolidate funding for cinema, audiovisual production and video games, via the CNC’s support account, whose revenues will not be capped and which, according to our forecasts, will amount to 676 million euros.
It is this “spirit of resistance” that also guides the bill on audiovisual communication and cultural sovereignty in the digital age. I will present it to the Council of Ministers at the end of November.
The President of the Republic recalled that the challenge is not to «adapt» to external constraints, but to invent a new model, strong principles and values that have allowed, for decades, our cultural exception.
A new model that imposes on traditional actors and digital actors: fairer competition rules, and respect for the French conception of copyright.
A new model that integrates, in our system of financing audiovisual and cinematographic creation, the actors who are for the moment kept out of it.
In this model, public broadcasting must play its full role as the first window to culture.
It must be a tool for spreading culture; it must entertain and amaze, move and inform.
I want us to make it a reference; the reference in Europe.
To achieve this, our public broadcaster must transform.
It must distinguish itself more from private channels, reaffirming its public service missions: information, culture, local offerings, youth, and international outreach.
These priorities call for closer cooperation between public audiovisual companies. To this end, France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde and the INA will be united within a public group: France Médias.
Having a high ambition for the public broadcaster is not contradictory to asking it to make a sustainable effort to help control public spending.
The five-year financial trajectory of public broadcasting, as defined in 2018, is confirmed in order to help control public spending.
In 2020, the expected savings effort of public broadcasting companies is €50 million.
In view of the reduction in the tax burden on the public audiovisual sector in the context of the reform of the tax system for the financing of cinema, its financing by the contribution to the public audiovisual sector could thus be reduced by €71 million.
This effort will make it possible to reduce, in a symbolic way, the amount of the contribution to the public broadcasting of €1 per household.
Emancipation, territories, artists and creators, and our cultural sovereignty. Those are the four main priorities of this 2020 budget.
To meet these challenges, to better meet the expectations of our fellow citizens and to bring about real change, we need a strong department.
This requires a transformation of the Ministry of Culture. And that is what we are doing, with all its agents.
I initiated a transformation that obeys clear principles: simplicity, closeness, boldness and efficiency.
We will create a directorate dedicated to emancipation, transmission and all policies of access to art and culture.
The central administration will be repositioned on its missions of design, management, animation and evaluation of cultural policies.
As I already said, this repositioning will be accompanied by a decentralization of the mechanisms managed by the department.
The steering of the strategic functions of the ministry will be strengthened: I am thinking of its international action, digital, foresight.
In addition, a process of simplification and dematerialisation of the procedures has been initiated, in order to facilitate the access of citizens and cultural actors to the mechanisms of the ministry.
That’s what we’ve done for the entertainment contractor licensing process. Tomorrow there will be a lot more.
The department’s employment trajectory has been greatly reduced to support this transformation process: the department’s workforce will be reduced by 15 full-time equivalents. Headquarters will lose 35 jobs. And 20 positions will be created in the decentralized network to support devolution.
Above all, to better meet the expectations of users, it is important to guarantee good working conditions for staff.
This budget therefore includes measures to ensure the fairness and attractiveness of the trades.
These professions, these teams, these agents who, everywhere in France, give the best of themselves, their skills, their expertise, to the service of arts and culture, and the general interest.
They make me proud. I salute them and thank them sincerely.
Ladies and gentlemen,
At the time of the sixtieth anniversary of this ministry, it is our duty, more than ever, to act for culture in the service of the French. Of all the French.
Even those who sometimes feel excluded. Especially those who feel excluded.
We must not wait for them to ask us.
Because you can’t live without culture.
I want to believe that this budget will enable us to promote the emancipation of our fellow citizens.
To support culture in the territories.
To accompany our artists and creators.
And to reaffirm our cultural sovereignty.
These are our priorities for 2020.
And these are the ways in which the department will implement them next year.
I am now available to answer your questions.