Roselyne Bachelot presented a budget commensurate with the unprecedented crisis experienced by culture and communication.
The 2021 budget provides for growth of 4.8%, or 167 million additional credits to total 3.82 billion euros.
To this must be added the 2 billion released as part of the recovery plan for the years 2021 and 2022. "
It is an exceptional budget in terms of its size and which responds to an unfortunately exceptional situation"
declared the Minister from the outset. .
In its action, the state does not simply intend to repair the damage caused by the Covid crisis.
He intends to take advantage of this crisis to rebuild the foundations of our cultural policy.
The increase in spending covers all sectors.
The portfolio benefits from a 4.4% increase in its loans, to 1.015 billion euros to which are added 345 million euros as part of the recovery plan.
Within this envelope, the cathedral plan intended to secure and restore these buildings will reach 160 million (80 million from the budget and another 80 million from the recovery plan).
Performing arts, particularly affected by the crisis, are the subject of numerous aids (4.5% increase in credits, to 862 million euros) in addition to the emergency measures already released.
The Culture Pass, wanted by Emmanuel Macron, will see its budget increase from 20 million to 50 million euros to promote its generalization.
This amount is very far from the 400 million initially mentioned for the Culture Pass.
But the minister explained that the first lessons of the experiment prove that the 500 euros allocated are not fully spent.
"The sum of 500 euros seems excessive and it is better a few hundred euros per Pass to correspond to the actual use"
explained Roselyne Bachelot.
On the communication side, the Minister recalled the efforts made to strengthen structural mechanisms.
Thus the press received a sector plan of 483 million euros to set up a sector plan.
Books and libraries benefit from a plan of 89 million, cinema and audiovisual have benefited from an exceptional budget of 165 million euros.
Finally, the public audiovisual sector will receive exceptional aid 70 million to compensate for the losses of the Covid.
This aid does not call into question the savings effort requested from the public sector, which must reduce its expenditure by 70 million euros in 2021.
Fragmented audiovisual law
Roselyne Bachelot took advantage of the presentation of the budget to take stock of the future of the audiovisual law.
The parliament will quickly examine the transposition of the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive allowing video streaming platforms to participate in the financing of creation.
On the other hand, the examination of an audiovisual mini-law on the fight against piracy and the creation of Arcom (merger of CSA and Hadopi) requires finding a niche in the overloaded agenda of Parliament.
It is therefore not won.
Finally, it has officially given up on the creation of a public audiovisual holding company.
Regarding public broadcasting, the minister called for a necessary reform of the license fee (contribution to public broadcasting) but without giving either a concrete track or a timetable.
Finally, she spoke on the “anti-advertising” bill that will be presented by Barbara Pompili, the Minister for the Ecological Transition.
Roselyne Bachelot met the bosses of the private media who are standing up against this bill and acknowledged that
"this poses a real problem for the financing of private media"
.