The culture mission lost 2.4 % of its 2025 budget

Paris. Barely two months after the laborious vote of the finance law for 2025, the government has canceled 2.7 billion euros in payment credits, including 94 million euros for the Culture mission. He explains this decision by growth forecasts revised downwards (0.7 % instead of 0.9 %) and the geopolitical context.

Technically, this cancellation of credits will be covered by the precaution reserve, approximately of the same amount, and the “Mobilization was excluded upon the initial programming of the expense of ministries”. In this case, payment credits for the Culture Mission go into execution from 3.86 to 3.81 billion euros according to our calculations, a drop of 1.3 %. Figures to be handled at precaution because between unused credits, competition funds (FDC, external funding) and transfers between missions, credits really spent can vary significantly. The graph (below, source court of accounts) thus retraces the amounts really spent, often far from the figures announced in the budget projects. The new budget of 3.81 billion euros could even decrease even because the government said “That an additional reserve, of an amount comparable to this cancellation, will be implemented”. Clearly, the culture mission budget could still drop by 94 million euros if this “Surgel” is not disgusted.

These credit cancellations are certainly covered by the precautionary reserve, but they are nonetheless complicated to manage for the departments of the ministry and the operators. Last year, the government of Gabriel Attal had canceled 200 million euros in payment credits for the culture mission, forcing the Minister to remove certain funding (€ 6 million at the Paris Opera, € 1 million at the Villa Medici …) – mainly to the Directorate General for Artistic Creation – and to plane the credits of the General Directorate of Patrimoines. However, we can either consider that in two years the state’s means for culture have decreased by 300 million euros, or realize that in eight years they have increased by almost 1 billion euros (€ 960 million). Was the economic situation of culture in 2017 so catastrophic?