France/ 6. Financing of culture  

6.1 Short overview

2002 is the latest year that data is available for all public levels in France and therefore, in order to be comparable, figures for all levels of government (including state) are given for that year. Data updating began in 2006 and will be available at the end of 2008. The latest available figures are given in detailed tables for the Ministry of Culture and Communication (see Table 5 in  chapter 6.2.3).

Public financing: in 2002, the cultural budget of the state was 6 billion euros, including 2.6 billion euros for the Ministry of Culture and Communication and 3.6 billion euros for the other ministries.

In Metropolitan France, the cultural expenditure of the local authorities is at a similar level: 4.1 billion euros for the municipalities of more than 10 000 inhabitants, 280 million euros for the publicly-owned establishments of inter-municipal co-operation (with possibility of raising the tax), 1.1 billion euros for the départements and 360 million euros for the régions.

In addition there is non-budgetary expenditure (taxes and fiscal exemptions), which is difficult to estimate because of the diversity of the fields.

The private financing of culture is ensured mainly by cultural household expenditure (cultural consumption). In 2002, this amounted to more than 38 billion euros (4.6% of the overall consumption), of which 16 billion, or 42%, was devoted to audiovisual expenditure (purchases of newspapers, reviews and periodicals, radio and television, and subscriptions).

Sponsorship by companies makes up an important part of private funding for culture. This is estimated at 195 million euros in 2002, for 2 665 registered activities, involving approximately one thousand companies.

While companies directly finance cultural activities, in particular they are keen to be involved in publicity: 4.3 billion euros to the press, 3.6 billion euros to television, 880 million euros to radio and 115 million euros to cinema in 2002.

Exports of cultural goods rose to 2 billion euros in 2002 (books, press, CDs, videos, music supplies, musical instruments, artistic works). This amount is much higher when exports of services and the expenditure of the foreign tourists in France are taken into consideration, although it is not possible to isolate the exact share devoted to culture. In the same way, it would be advisable to withdraw the amounts spent on cultural purchases by French people abroad, either when travelling as tourists, or when they are supplied directly from abroad, although the corresponding data is not available.

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