France Wants Video Games Treated Like Cinema, Starting With a Global Festival

By Lionel Gen Bernard Allkeyshop Gaming News
11 September 2026 no comments

Macron wants cinema-level cultural status for games, but his proposed festival has no confirmed city, date or budget.

In a 7 September statement, Macron argued that games deserve recognition alongside cinema and presented an international festival as a starting point.

Read Emmanuel Macron’s 7 September statement on X: Emmanuel Macron on X

https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/2096982376559559118

The French National Centre for Cinema already recognises video games as a dedicated cultural sector.

France has long used cultural policy to support cinema at home and abroad. Macron wants video games to receive comparable recognition, but this remains an ambition rather than an event plan.

What Macron actually announced

Macron’s argument starts with culture. He says video games belong alongside cinema in France’s public policy and international image. The proposed festival is the practical expression of that idea.

The distinction matters. The announcement does not create a trade show, publish a programme or set a production timetable. It signals an intention to give games a more visible place in French cultural policy.

The festival is an idea, not an event

There is no confirmed festival name, host city, date, budget, organiser or format. It is also unclear whether the project would be aimed at the public, industry professionals, creators, schools, publishers, or a mix of all of them. Studio and publisher participation has not been announced.

There is still a long way to go between a cultural declaration and an event with global pull. A major international festival needs a reliable calendar, industry confidence and a reason for people to return each year. Those details have not been announced.

Clair Obscur shows why the argument lands now

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 price page is a recent example of a French-made game reaching players far beyond France. Its international visibility gives Macron’s argument a concrete reference point: French studios can make games with an audience across languages, platforms and communities.

That does not mean the game caused the proposal or that buying it supports a future festival. It is simply useful context for players following the discussion.

For readers who want to compare the current price after following that context, this is the article’s only Clair Obscur comparison card.

A global ambition needs more than a comparison

Gamescom is a useful comparison for the project’s possible scale, but not for its current status. It has an established identity, a returning audience and a deep industry ecosystem. France’s proposal has yet to define what would make its event distinct.

The encouraging part is the recognition itself: games can be discussed as art, technology, employment and shared culture at the same time. The next meaningful update will be concrete rather than rhetorical, such as a city, a date, a team, funding or a clear invitation to studios and players.

Lionel Gen Bernard

Competitive gaming veteran and Infographics Creator at AllKeyShop, Lionel 'Gen' Bernard made his name in the early days of esports as a professional Unreal Tournament player, competing at the highest level when competitive FPS was still in its infancy. Founder of AllKeyShop, he now brings his competitive DNA to data-driven visual storytelling, producing original infographics and editorial content. His work maps the global gaming landscape through the lens of someone who's lived it from both sides: the arena and the industry.