Macron Urges YouTube to Fund Local Content as Cultural Model Faces Threat

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, urged YouTube to contribute more to local content creation, warning that the platform’s growing dominance poses a threat to France’s cultural model. Co-chaired with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, the summit addressed the dramatic shifts in the entertainment industry driven by social media platforms, artificial intelligence, and media consolidation.

“YouTube is very efficient. It’s de facto the default platform in a lot of countries for a lot of people,” Macron said. “And it’s quite clear that today they divert a lot of people from these platforms or the big channels where a lot of money is invested in creation.”

Macron emphasized that France and other nations should engage multilaterally with YouTube to encourage investment in local content, creativity, and respect for authors. He noted that YouTube currently outperforms Netflix in over 20 international markets and argued it should be brought into the same ecosystem as platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and Disney, which are already required to invest in local production.

The French president also highlighted France’s aggressive push into AI, pointing to his role in supporting companies like Mistral and the creation of the EU’s AI Act. However, he stressed the need for transparency and intellectual property protections. “When you have content produced by AI, you just have to know it. So transparency for us is key,” he said, adding that without such measures, AI could erode trust in creative content, science, and democracy.

Addressing the recent EU approval of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, Macron described it as primarily a U.S. M&A story but stressed the importance of ensuring that major studios maintain a strong presence in Europe. He noted that Paramount Skydance’s Andy Gordon attended the summit and sat at his table alongside executives from Disney, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Mediawan, and Sony.

“What is important to us is to make sure that you will still finance creation, that you will still work with us, that you will still make more movies in France and in Europe,” Macron said.

With Macron’s second mandate ending in May and far-right and far-left parties leading in polls, concerns have grown about the future of France’s cultural policy. The French system, which uses levies on cinema admissions collected by the National Film Board (CNC) to reinvest in local production, has faced criticism from extreme political factions.

Macron pointed to recent improvements in France’s international tax credit, which now includes above-the-line costs and has attracted major productions such as the sixth and final season of “Emily in Paris” and the fourth season of “The White Lotus.” He also cited the France 2030 plan, which has expanded studio infrastructure and turned France into a leading shooting destination.

“We want more of them to make new movies in our country. Why? Because it’s good for our ecosystem,” he said. “It will hire a lot of technicians and actors and so on. It will show our landscapes, and it will create jobs…”

Looking ahead, Macron warned that the defense of France’s cultural model would require sustained effort beyond his presidency. “Some extremes are fighting very hard against the CNC and what we call this exception culturelle and the DNA of the French model,” he said. “We have to be ready to resist because this model has been created during decades by a lot of artists, by the state and the different governments and it’s extremely important.”

He concluded by linking cultural policy to national soft power: “Culture and art is part of what France is, but it’s part as well of our soft power outside.”