French President Emmanuel Macron said the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, which he co-chaired with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Monday, was deliberately held at a moment of dramatic upheaval for the entertainment business, from the growing dominance of YouTube and TikTok to AI and media consolidation.
Speaking to Variety at the event, he pointed to the growing power of YouTube, TikTok and other social platforms as one of the reasons the timing was right for the landmark gathering devoted to the future of cinema and the moving image.
“YouTube is very efficient. It’s de facto the default platform in a lot of countries for a lot of people. 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,” said Macron at the Fondation Maeght, a French art foundation showcasing works of art from Georges Braque to Joan Miró, nestled amid a luxuriant forest.
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He argued that YouTube, which is currently outtalking Netflix in over 20 international markets, should increasingly be brought into the same ecosystem as other global platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney, that have been required to invest in local production.
France and other countries need to “engage with them” in a multilateral way, he said, to try to change the platform’s approach so that it helps finance “local content,” while supporting “more creativity, more creations, more respect of the authors.”
Macron, who’s been a driving force behind the rise of French AI companies, including Mistral, as well as the creation of the EU’s AI Act and the international summit on AI that was held last year, also said France wanted to compete aggressively in AI by expanding computing capacity, data centers and European models. But he insisted that technological ambition must be accompanied by protections for intellectual property and much greater transparency.
Asked about his discussions about EU regulations with companies such as Google or OpenAI, Macron said that while France is eager to compete in the AI race, it’s also pushing for greater transparency and protections for creators in Europe.
“When you have content produced by AI, you just have to know it. So transparency for us is key,” he said. “We want to flag when the content is produced with AI. Because we think it’s fair.”
Without that, Macron warned, AI could “totally transform the relationship to truth,” feeding distrust not only in creative content but in science and democracy.
Macron also addressed the increasing consolidation of the entertainment business and his discussions surrounding the greenlighting of the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal by the EU regulators. He said he didn’t have an active role in lobbying for the merger, but admitted that he supported “the commitments made to invest more in Europe and to create more content and to provide guarantees and commitments vis-à-vis our theaters.” Paramount Skydance boss David Ellison traveled to Paris (as well as London and Germany) in January and met with Macron, among other high-level political and industry figures.
The French President described the merger case as fundamentally “a U.S. M&A story,” saying his priority was ensuring that a major company like Paramount Skydance maintained a strong footprint in France and Europe. While Ellison wasn’t present at the Lumiere Summit, Paramount Skydance’s Andy Gordon was there and sat at Macron’s table at lunch, alongside The Walt Disney Company’s Dana Walden, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, NBCUniversal Entertainment’s Donna Langley, Mediawan’s Pierre-Antoine Capton and Sony’s Tom Rothman, among others.
“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,” he said.
The Summit is also being held on the last stretch of his second mandate as he is due to leave office in May. With the far-right and far-left parties dominating polls ahead of the next presidential election, the French film and TV industry has shared deep concerns over the future of France’s prized cultural model that could come under threat.
Asked what would survive beyond 2027, Macron pointed first to France’s international tax credit for international movies and TV series, which was recently strengthened with the inclusion of above-the-line costs and has helped draw a growing number of major U.S. and international productions to the country.
“We improved tax credits, international tax credits. If somebody wants to withdraw this tax credit, it will just kill the industry and a lot of opportunities,” said Macron, who had told Variety in a cover interview in 2024 that he would fight for “Emily in Paris” Season 5 to remain in the French capital, prompting a comedic feud with the Rome mayor. Besides the sixth and final season of “Emily in Paris,” “The White Lotus” season 4 is also currently shooting in France.
He also pointed to the investment made during his presidency in studios and production infrastructure as part of his France 2030 plan, which he said has turned France into a leading international 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 during the movie is made and it will attract a lot of people in our landscapes and our cities and so on.”
Yet, Macron suggested the bigger battle after his departure could be over the foundations of France’s cultural policy itself.
“Some extremes are fighting very hard against the CNC (National Film Board) and what we call this exception culturelle and the DNA of the French model,” Macron said. France’s system, developed over decades, uses levies on cinema admissions that are collected by the National Film Board and re-injected into local production, alongside other schemes supporting independent producers, filmmakers and theaters.
“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 said.
Ultimately, Macron tied the defense of the French model not only to jobs and filmmaking but also to the country’s soft power.
“Culture and art is part of what France is, but it’s part as well of our soft power outside,” he said. “Recognizing that art is an exception which requires specific investment of the government, diversity of people, players, authors, protection of their rights and a specific effort in terms of multilateralism is crucial.”
Facts Only
* Emmanuel Macron and Lee Jae Myung co-chaired the Lumière Summit on Monday.
* The event took place at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
* YouTube currently outperforms Netflix in over 20 international markets.
* France is developing AI capacity through companies like Mistral and the EU AI Act.
* Mandatory flagging of AI-produced content is a stated French policy goal.
* David Ellison of Paramount Skydance met with Macron in Paris in January.
* Attendees at the summit lunch included executives from Disney, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Mediawan, and Sony.
* Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to leave office in May.
* France provides international tax credits for movies and TV series, including above-the-line costs.
* "Emily in Paris" (Season 6) and "The White Lotus" (Season 4) are filming in France.
* The CNC (National Film Board) manages cinema admission levies to fund local production.
Executive Summary
President Emmanuel Macron co-chaired the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to address the upheaval in the entertainment industry. The discussions focused on the dominance of social platforms like YouTube and TikTok, which are diverting audiences and investment away from traditional creative channels. Macron advocates for integrating these platforms into a multilateral regulatory ecosystem similar to Netflix and Amazon, requiring them to finance local content and protect authors' rights.
Parallel concerns regarding artificial intelligence center on the need for aggressive European competition in computing capacity and models, balanced by mandatory transparency and intellectual property protections to prevent the erosion of truth. Regarding industry consolidation, Macron expressed support for the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger provided there are guarantees for European investment and cinema theaters. As his mandate ends in May, he emphasizes the necessity of maintaining France's "cultural exception" model—funded by cinema levies—and international tax credits against potential political shifts toward the far-right or far-left.
Full Take
The strongest version of this narrative presents a state leader attempting to modernize the "cultural exception"—the principle that culture is not a mere commodity—by expanding its definition to include digital platforms and AI. It frames the state as a necessary shield for human creativity against the algorithmic efficiency of Big Tech.
The narrative relies on a specific framing: the transition from traditional media consolidation (Paramount-Warner Bros.) to platform dominance (YouTube/TikTok). There is a subtle tension here; the state seeks to regulate the "disruptors" (YouTube) while simultaneously courting the "consolidators" (Paramount Skydance) to ensure infrastructure investment. This creates a pragmatic duality where the state supports corporate mergers as long as they provide "guarantees" for local jobs and theaters.
The root cause is the clash between national sovereignty (soft power) and the borderless nature of digital consumption. The unstated assumption is that cultural identity can be preserved through tax credits and levies even as the medium of consumption shifts to non-linear, algorithmic feeds.
Implications suggest a future where "truth" is managed via transparency flags, and culture is increasingly a negotiation between government subsidies and global platform quotas. The primary beneficiaries are established production hubs and the political class that manages these subsidies.
Patterns detected: none
Bridge Questions:
1. Can a government-funded "cultural exception" survive in an era where the primary curators of content are algorithms rather than human editors or state boards?
2. Does requiring platforms to fund "local content" foster genuine creativity, or does it create a formulaic "quota cinema" designed to satisfy regulators?
3. If AI transforms the relationship to truth, is a "transparency flag" a sufficient safeguard, or does it merely provide a veneer of legitimacy to synthetic media?
Counterstrike Scan: A coordinated campaign would use "cultural preservation" as a pretext to implement protectionist trade barriers or state censorship under the guise of "protecting authors." The current content does not match this pattern; it focuses on multilateral engagement and economic incentives.
Sentinel — Human
The text exhibits the characteristics of human journalism reporting on a high-level event by synthesizing direct statements and documented political/industry discussions.