Pass Culture: Publishers denounce sleight of hand

While the Senate will examine the finance bill for 2025 (PLF 2025) next week and the government still hopes to save several tens of billions of euros from next year, the announced reform of the Culture Pass is making people cringe book professionals.

Reduction of 5 million euros

Discussions are continuing with the various cultural industries, including the French Bookstore Union and the National Publishing Union, while the cabinet Rachida DataMinister of Culture for almost a year, has not hidden his desire to review this system, “ largest budget line of the Ministry of Culture “, she said last April.

It represents in fact 211 million euros for rue de Valois, with an additional 72 million euros from the Ministry of Education for its “collective” share.

The government has also tabled an amendment to the National Assembly aimed at reducing the credits dedicated to the Culture Pass by 5 million euros on the text rejected by the Palais Bourbon as a whole, on November 12.

By the end of December and the obligatory adoption of a budgetary text, the reform is expected on the financial level, that is to say the means allocated to the system, and the projections point towards a reduction in these resources. It will then be a question of how these resources will be managed. According to the rapporteurs of the Senate Finance Committee, the reform “ could provide for a reduction in the overall envelope granted to each beneficiary, despite a bonus for scholarship holders, as well as a part of the pass amount reserved for live shows ».

2% of the book market

Enough to alert publishers, for whom the Culture pass, with its 95 million euros in revenue for books, represented in 2023 nearly 2% of the publishing market in France. “ If it is a question of making budgetary savings by increasing the compulsory part of the pass for live performances to 50 euros, which currently represents 0.7% of the choice of young people, to the detriment of access to reading, what we say it “, lightning Renaud Lefebvregeneral secretary of the SNE, who urges “ everyone to take their responsibilities without sleight of hand ».

Among the arguments of the SNE, also appears “ an undersized part of the book » in the past in relation to its weight as a cultural industry in relation to live performance. And that’s not all. “ In the collective part, the book is marginalcontinues the employer representative. While for some independent bookstores, it represents 5 to 10% of the activity. Halving the capacity of the book pass represents one less point of growth for the sector », concludes Renaud Lefebvre who defends freedom of choice and “ finds it difficult to force young people to buy what they don’t want ”, as a final blow.

Preserve your achievements

A reasoning shared by Marianne Lumeaulecturer in economics at Rennes 1 University. Guest on France Culture last week, she mentioned “ the need for mediation and introducing young people to the cultural products offered to them ». Pour Sébastien Cavalierdirector of the Culture pass, present on the same antenna, it will be the “ duty » to structure « to encourage young people to move towards live performance “, even if he admitted ” that at the beginning it may seem like a certain constraint ».

If nothing has yet been done, whether in terms of the budget or the management of the system, tension is rising for each of the cultural actors, one seeking to preserve its achievements while the other tries to take advantage of the tool launched in 2021.

After a round table on the “Culture pass, a local issue” on Tuesday November 19, the Congress of Mayors will host another meeting on “live entertainment under tension” on Thursday November 21, for its last day in Paris. The minister recently launched two missions which must submit their report in mid-December. Exceeding in value the 51% use of the pass in 2022, the book decreased to 43% in 2023, however remaining well ahead of the most used cultural segments of the system ahead of the cinema (24%) last year.