Additional aid of 2.4 million euros for 2023 and 2024 will be paid by the government to home press delivery networks to support subscriptions to the paper press, in free fall, and ensure the pluralism of the titles supported, a learned Agence France-Presse (AFP) from the Ministry of Culture, Thursday March 14.
This aid, the terms of application of which were published in Official newspaper THURSDAY, “aims to help press support networks, which are asked to be widely open to press titles that request it”, including when these compete with titles already transported, said a spokesperson for the ministry. It must also allow them to “modernize and invest to facilitate portability”.
The 2024 state budget provides for some 35 million euros in portage assistance. The transport and distribution of the press benefit in France from preferential postal rates differentiated according to the categories of titles.
In September 2021, the government reformed the postal rates applied to the press, aiming in particular to develop home delivery, in a context of erosion in distributed volumes. The government then estimated that access “to a pluralist press throughout the territory and in good conditions constitutes a democratic issue”.
In September, the Ministry of Culture indicated that it had paid a total of 110.4 million euros in direct aid to the press in 2022, including 28 million euros as part of aid for pluralism, 51 million euros for transport and distribution aid, and 31.4 million euros for investment aid.