The Culture budget will further increase significantly in 2024

The draft budget of the Ministry of Culture that Rima Abdul Malak presented this afternoon clearly shows that Culture remains the spoiled child of Emmanuel Macron. With a 5.4% increase in payment credits planned for 2024 (before transfers), following increases of 7% in the two previous years, the resources of Rue de Valois will have increased by 30% since the change of tenant. at the Elysée in 2017.

It is true that the year 2024 is a somewhat special year, it is the year of the Olympics with its procession of openings of large sites – the Châteaux de Villers-Cotterêts next October – and reopenings of just as many scale: the Grand Palais, Notre-Dame Cathedral. Why reduce the positive effect of these inaugurations by cutting corners on the Culture budget?

The President, who clearly understood the importance of heritage in the imagination of the French, even added a layer by further increasing the means for the restoration of monumental heritage: +8.8%! The prize goes to national museums whose payment credits will increase by 9.3% due to inflation. All this without taking into account external contributions (+ €65 million) for the ecological transition (“absolute priority”), part of which will be used for the energy renovation of buildings. And too bad if the master plans of Versailles and Fontainebleau are going to be planed a little.

Compared to this, the new resources allocated to Creation almost pale in comparison: + 3.1% in total (including live performance) but + 6.7% for the visual arts all the same. Bad news, however, spoiled the party a little: the abandonment of the Cité du Théâtre, whose updated costs (€125 million) no longer fit into the budgetary equation.

Paradoxically, the resources allocated to the Culture Pass and to Artistic and Cultural Education are almost standing still at +1%. To compensate, the minister invited two young Pass beneficiaries to the stage so that they could talk about their experience. Definitely very gifted in communication, the minister had also reserved an easy announcement which will please the art market: the application of the reduced rate of VAT to purchases and sales, a regime very favorable to dealers like THE JdA showed it and which was almost acquired.