Merely seven months before a fateful presidential election which has the far right leading polls, the French TV and film industry is in shambles. Despite recent efforts led by French President Emmanuel Macron to showcase and export France’s unique cultural model overseas — notably during the Lumiere Summit co-organized by the South Korean president — the country is currently battling over clashing agendas, with Netflix and other streaming services on a crusade to limit investment obligations in French content; broadcaster France Televisions struggling to cope with declining advertising revenues and fresh budget cuts; and pay TV group Canal+ striving to hold on to its favorable position in the country’s windowing schedule while resisting larger investments in French cinema. While these battles have been brewing for some time, two recent reports released this week have served as catalysts for the current situation.
France Televisions’ president Delphine Ernotte Cunci revealed in an interview with Le Monde that the French government is planning a €47 million cut in funding for 2027 as part of its Finance Law (setting the national government’s budget), and a further €47 million cut in subsidies. These would be leaving the broadcaster with a total shortfall of €90 million next year. In addition to these budget cuts, the group is also facing a 20% decline in advertising revenues.
Ernotte Cunci said she saw these reductions as a “threat to the funding of French cultural production,” reinforcing the sector’s dependency on U.S. streaming services, which have now become crucial to financing ambitious French series. What’s becoming clear is that foreign platforms will soon be making the largest investments in French creative production. Do we want this kind of subservience?” said Ernotte Cunci.
Do we want to weaken this creative, freedom-driven industry, which employs more people than the automotive industry? We’ve already outsourced steel—are we going to outsource culture as well? I call for collective vigilance.” Meanwhile, French broadcasting authority ARCOM released a report highlighting the dramatic shift in the balance of power, with Netflix becoming France’s largest private contributor to local creation for the first time in 2025, investing €308 million, including €250 million in audiovisual production and €58 million in cinema.
While Canal+ remains the country’s biggest financier of cinema alone, with €156 million invested last year, Netflix now surpasses any private French group when film and audiovisual spending are combined. France Télévisions remains ahead with €476 million invested across film and TV, but ARCOM points out that by 2030, Netflix could surpass France Télévisions. Canal+ Group, on the other hand, has pledged to invest nearly $1.1 billion in French and European films between 2028 and 2032.
Netflix, like Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, has lodged an appeal to France’s highest court, the Council of State (Conseil d’Etat), to protest against new sub-quota investment obligations in documentary and animation. Netflix’s VP of content in France Pauline Dauvin, who has been calling out the country’s “disproportionate and discriminatory” regulatory framework in recent op-eds published in Le Monde, doubled down during a TV festival in La Rochelle, warning that the French industry was becoming too dependent on Netflix to finance content and renewing the streamer’s demand for a cap on investments. And that is sustainable neither for the sector nor for Netflix.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
