Paris. Never in the last twenty years has a Culture budget been prepared in such confusion, and it is not over. After the dissolution in June followed by legislative elections which did not give an absolute majority to one camp, the government was led by resigned ministers until the appointment of Michel Barnier on September 5, who took fifteen days to compose your team and renew Rachida Dati Rue de Valois. However, traditionally, it is during this period that ministries prepare their draft budget for the following year. The services of the Ministry of Culture learned late, on August 20, the amount of the expenditure ceiling of their budget, equal to their 2024 budget, and waited for instructions from their minister to make marginal changes. These repeated uncertainties are reflected in the figures. The draft budget for the “Culture” mission is therefore stable compared to the initial 2024 finance law (+€14 million), i.e. a decrease if we take inflation into account.
The other big uncertainty to date is the fate of this budget when it is presented to Parliament. The Minister of the Budget, Laurent Saint-Martin, indicated that he was going to propose through amendments additional savings of 5 billion euros on ministerial budgets, or around forty million for Culture if the reduction is proportional. The government may also have to deal with the specific requests of deputies and senators if it wants to pass its budget, unless it resorts to section 49.3.
Finally, it should be remembered that the figures from the initial 2024 finance law, to which those for 2025 are compared, absolutely do not correspond to what will have actually been spent at the end of 2024. Last year, Rima Abdul Malak had announced a budget increasing by 5.7%, representing 182 million euros, but a few months later the budget was cut by 204 million euros. At the time she explained that this cut would be made up in part by the credits placed in reserve, which requires verification. In summary, we should not take developments literally and only consider the dynamics.
© The Journal of Arts
Versailles and Fontainebleau to the rescue of the Center Pompidou
Significant dynamics in heritage are played out in major works. The palaces of Versailles and Fontainebleau are asked to significantly reduce the budgets provided for in their master plan (“as part of their contribution to controlling public spending”, according to the formula used in the documents submitted to Parliament), in order to be able to finance the start of the major construction site of the Center Pompidou (€29 million). The ministry has maintained the closure of the Center for several years despite the voices raised to demand work on an open site. Also included in 2025: the restoration of the cloister of Clairvaux Abbey (€14 million), the continuation of the restoration of Nantes Cathedral damaged by the fire of 2020 and which must reopen in 2025 (€6 million) , the restoration of the Saint-Nicolas tower in La Rochelle managed by the Center des monuments nationaux (€5.6 million). The “Museum-Memorial of Terrorism” project seems to be floundering, since it is losing 2.5 million euros in investment credits.
The curiosities of the “Creation” program
The budget for visual arts in the “Creation” program is also stagnating. We note that a sum of 4 million euros is open for ” to accompany “ the merger of the City of Ceramics and the Gobelins factory, so that this new establishment which should see the light of day in 2025 – and is supposed to strengthen the artistic professions while making savings on structural costs – begins by cost.
Even more surprising is the allocation of 7.43 million euros allocated to the Palais de Tokyo. In 2023, the Parisian art center benefited from a subsidy of 7.3 million euros while generating a profit of 1.1 million euros thanks to the windfall provided by the rental of spaces (4 M€), partnerships (2 M€) and various concessions (3.2 M€). It is true that paid attendance fell by 21% in 2023. In these periods of constrained budgets, shouldn’t we consider more attractive programming and reduce state subsidies? or at the very least draw on reserves?
Another subject of curiosity: compensation for the increase in the CSG for artist-authors, a system which is entering its sixth year. It is a tax expenditure that does not say its name and costs the State a whopping 21 million euros. The explanation given to compensate for this expense is worth its weight in peanuts: the sustainability of this measure is made possible by the recovery of social security contributions from artist-authors transferred in 2020 to the Central Agency for Social Security Organizations (ACOSS). Implied, the savings made in this transfer (to be verified!) make it possible to finance tax expenditures. If each gain in productivity in the functioning of the State results in new expenditure, France is not close to reducing its deficit.
The Culture Pass is resisting
As symbolic as they may be, the dynamics perceptible in the third major budget of the “Culture” mission (Transmission and democratization) reveal surprising biases: the allocation of the Culture Pass is maintained while the budget of art schools loses 7 million euros and that of artistic and cultural education, 10 million euros. Anticipating a bronca in Parliament over the 210 million euros of the Culture Pass (to which are added €71 million in the National Education budget to finance the collective share), Rachida Dati lit a counter-fire. In a column published The Worldshe says she wants to adjust the prize pool of 300 euros according to parents’ income and encourage purchases in live entertainment.
During this time, therefore, the budget of art schools remains stable, while essential work is postponed, as is the case at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. The document indicates that an envelope of 7 million euros has been opened for the Culture and rurality plan, but it is difficult to spot the budget which is falling to compensate for this envelope.
Ultimately, the only budget that increases significantly is that of ministry personnel expenses (+ 3.1%), and this by the simple application of statutory increases because the number of agents remains the same. This clearly illustrates the constraints of the budgets of ministries in general and that of Culture in particular, where no less than 80% of expenses are already fixed before even preparing the budget.