PRESS RELEASE
20 March 2024
Communication to the Senate Finance Committee
EXCEPTIONAL APPROPRIATIONS
FOR CULTURE AND
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
Between 2017 and mid-2023, more than €3 billion in government funding was committed to
the cultural sector outside the budget of the ministry of culture, which is almost equivalent
to one year’s funding for the ministry’s cultural mission. On an unprecedented scale, these
exceptional appropriations have been added to the ministerial budget, with the aim of
supporting the culture sector and the cultural and creative industries in the wake of the covid
crisis, as well as financing their innovation and transformation, through the recovery plan
(€1.6bn devoted to culture) and the future investment and France 2030 programmes (€1.5bn
devoted to this sector). Carried out at the request of the Senate Finance Committee, this
investigation is a continuation of the Court’s work on these unprecedented procedures.
A recovery plan to safeguard the sector
Announced at the end of the summer of 2020, in the context of the health crisis, the recovery
plan aimed to support the sector’s income. With a budget of €1.6 billion for
culture, adopted
as part of the Finance Act for 2021, it has been fully committed. Because of the health context,
it was largely made up of emergency measures. This plan has made it possible to stabilise the
budgetary and financial situation of many players and, more generally, to safeguard the cultural
sector. On the other hand, its second objective - to accelerate economic, industrial and social
change - was probably too ambitious for a short-term programme, and was only marginally
implemented. This intention, to dispense State appropriations as quickly as possible, has also
had an inflationary effect in certain sectors and may have been to the detriment of other public
policy issues. Stimulus loans, which were managed by the administration, were reallocated
according to actual needs. On the other hand, in the absence of financial recovery clauses,
those granted to operators as part of the recovery are not returned to the State budget, even
though their situation would allow this. Controls aimed at recovering undue payments from
certain aid recipients remain marginal. In addition, the risk of certain schemes financed by
exceptional appropriations becoming permanent has not been completely ruled out.
PIAs 1 and 3: a lack of overall strategy for the cultural sector
Future Investment Programme (PIA)
1 in the field of culture and the cultural and creative
industries has produced unsatisfactory results. Companies with fragile economic models have
been financed as part of a call for expressions of interest, “Culture, heritage and digital” and a
cultural and creative industries fund (ICC-
Tech and Touch
). Since then, they have experienced
serious difficulties. The projects of the companies funded are sometimes based on an extensive
conception of the cultural industries or are not part of them, such as ethical and sustainable
consumer products. These initial experiments with investment in the cultural sector (to the
tune of €70m by mid
-2023) suffered from a lack of a formalised strategy with the Ministry of
Culture. This has also resulted in a lack of thought being given to the tools to be used, the types
of structuring projects and the acceleration effects being sought. As for PIA 3, it has been used
to finance major heritage works (to the tune of €193m), which are certainly useful, but have
nothing to do with the objective of innovation and acceleration attached to this inter-
ministerial scheme.
France 2030: considerable resources without prior needs analysis or monitoring
At the end of 2020, following the stimulus package, the French government decided to commit
€400m under PIA 4 to implement the strategy for accelerating the cultural and creative
industries. Then, in autumn 2021, €600m was announced for the image and digital industries,
as part of France 2030. At the end of 2022, PIA 4 was attached to France 2030, which brings
the total effort for its cultural component to €1bn. The “France 2030” strategy for the cultural
sector is difficult to understand, and the decision-making processes are cumbersome, while the
dispersal of information makes monitoring very difficult. Above all, the desire to launch calls for
tenders quickly may have led to strategic issues being overlooked and priority being given to
the most mature projects or those supported by the most structured sectors, such as the image
industries. Prior studies of the needs and functioning of the markets are proving to be
insufficient, with the result that windfall effects have been identified. Finally, the financial
operators involved in its implementation,
Caisse des Dépôts
and Bpifrance, are put in the
position to pay out subsidies in particular, a task that in principle falls to the ministry of culture.
Initial findings
The decision-making process for committing funds to the PIAs and France 2030 has the effect
of removing responsibility from those involved: in particular, the Ministry of Culture has been
relieved of its strategic steering and control responsibilities for funds equivalent to a significant
proportion of its annual budget. In addition, the management of the PIAs and France 2030
derogates from the principles of public finance (annuality, speciality, unity, even sincerity)
without allowing Parliament to exercise its control role. In conclusion, the Court stresses the
need to introduce a culture of evaluation into these exceptional expenditures.
Read the report
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