French President Emmanuel Macron wasn’t kidding when he told Variety the country would fight to get “Emily in Paris” back to France after the hit Netflix show’s Roman escapade.
Netflix boss Ted Sarandos was one of the few top U.S. players invited by Macron to take part in the eighth edition of Choose France, a summit dedicated to promoting the country’s attractiveness to draw investments. Held on May 19 at Versailles, the event marked the first time Choose France included a focus on cinema and audiovisual.
While the summit’s cultural program was initiated well before U.S. President Trump proposed a 100% tariff on foreign films amid rising tensions between French and U.S. guilds, it turned out to be an auspicious timing for a transatlantic meeting. Since little is known about Trump’s plan so far, attendees continued to focus on increasing France’s piece of the production pie.
Macron sat at a table alongside Sarandos, Mediawan CEO and chairman Pierre-Antoine Capton, A24 co-founder Daniel Katz, Apple’s head of worldwide video Jamie Erlicht, Russell Grandinetti, SVP for Amazon’s international stores, France culture minister Rachida Dati, CNC president Gaetan Bruel and Valerie Pecresse, the president of the Île-de-France Regional Council. Also present were French producers such as Alexia Laroche-Joubert, Banijay France CEO, Federation Studios’ Pascal Breton and executive producers Raphael Benoliel and John Bernard.
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The biggest issue brought up by Sarandos during the discussion was the need for France to strengthen its tax incentive for international productions. Currently France has a 30% tax rebate on below-the-line expenses incurred in France (and up to 40% if visual effects are done locally), but Sarandos and other executives, such as Benoliel and Bernard, are calling for the country to extend the eligible expenses to above-the-line costs, such as the actors’ salaries. While the issue was addressed before in vain, Macron hinted that it could be considered this time around.
“It was the first time since the creation of the international tax rebate (in 2009) that we could discuss these above-the-line expenses and felt that our arguments were heard,” said Benoliel. “There’s been a slowdown of production everywhere and if we want to stay competitive with countries like Italy and the U.K., we need to put this in place because it will benefit our entire economy and ecosystem, including crew members and talent pool and make sure that all the infrastructure we’re building in France will be of use,” Benoliel continued.
During the discussion, Macron highlighted what France has put in place to raise its profile as a hot destination for international productions, including an investment of €1 billion (of which €300 million are public funding) to beef up filming infrastructures, train top-tier technicians and workforce in animation and VFX, as part of the government’s France 2030 roadmap. Echoing Macron, the French delegation also spoke about iconic landmarks such as the Chateau de Versailles or the Louvre Museum that have welcomed shoots in recent years. Even Coralie Fargeat’s Oscar-winning “The Sustance,” produced by Working Title and Universal, shot entirely in Southern France though the film is set in Los Angeles.
“At the heart of the discussions on Monday was France 2030,” says Bruel. “Under this plan, we have doubled our filming capacity with new studios, backlot replicating Paris, new schools, etc.”
A few days prior to the meeting in Versailles, the CNC and the French army’s Mission Cinema hosted a historic event on May 17 in Cannes and gathered a handful of U.S. executives on board a French Navy frigate.
“It was a way of showing them how well integrated France’s film support services are, and how the French system operates in a very fluid way, where we can solve any problems and come up with creative solutions, and get the full support of our highest authorities,” Bruel points out.
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Laroche-Joubert says that while Britain has a bigger tax rebate than France and has the benefit of being an English-speaking nation, the U.S. executives present at the Choose France roundtable suggested that U.K. filming facilities and workforce were already saturated. “And to be very clear, Britain doesn’t have the Eiffel Tower, Versailles or the Champs-Élysées. And Italy neither!” says Laroche-Joubert, whose company, Banijay France, recently worked with Apple on “Carême,” a 19th century-set French historical drama which partly shot at Versailles and Palais Royal.
“Erlicht told me something fantastic,” says Laroche-Joubert. “He said, ‘if I had to shoot this series, ‘Carême,’ in the U.S. it would have cost me four to six times more with the production value that you have put in place.’”
The French lobbying to attract shoots has irked some within the ranks of U.S. film guilds such as the DGA and the MPA that have voiced their concerns to the United States Trade Representative about runaway productions, but the presence of key American players such as Sarandos, Katz, Erlicht and Grandinetti in Paris at Choose France conveyed a sense that the relationship between French and U.S. film and TV industries was still harmonious.
In fact, Sarandos was so hyped about his visit at Choose France that he posted a selfie with Macron on Instagram and wrote that he had “an incredible few days in Paris” and added that “France has always been at the heart of cinema and storytelling, and Netflix is proud to continue partnering with French talent to share these unique voices in the world.”
Sarandos’ post was liked and commented on by no other than Lily Collins, aka Emilie Cooper of “Emily in Paris,” with a bunch of high-five emojis. Collins will be indeed be back in Paris to shoot the remainder of “Emily in Paris” season 5 in the French capital in a few days. Benoliel, who is producer on the series, joked to Macron (who made headlines when he told Variety about his determination to have the show stay in France last October) that he was going to pick up Collins in Rome to make sure she’ll return to Paris.
During Choose France, Sarandos also announced that the streamer will ramp up its investment the southern French city of Marseille, through the film school Kourtrajmé Marseille and the launch of a Cinematheque in Marseille.
This eighth edition of Choose France, which hosted more than 400 participants from 46 nationalities, yielded a record of 53 announcements representing a cumulated €40.8 billion in investment, half of which will go towards AI.
