Should you judge the quality of a film based on how many people have been to see it? It’s the type of argument you would expect to hear in the context of the “culture war”; but is it what you would expect to hear from French culture warriors? From a country that uses language quotas to maintain its musicians on broadcast media, has fought to promote its language abroad and has always seen itself as a place that radiates art outwards? After all, this is a country that put on an opera for the 2024 Olympic closing ceremony.
Enter Sébastien Chenu, vice-president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN). Chenu advanced the box-office success argument as a reason for his party’s proposal to eliminate, Doge-style, France’s National Cinema Centre (CNC) – the public body that subsidises almost every nook and cranny of the country’s heavy-hitting film industry. Let the market take over? Quality as a derivative of quantity? If the RN is perfectly happy to surrender Audiard for Avengers 18 (or whatever), why not apply the logic elsewhere as well?
