The amendment tabled by the deputy Rassemblement national Jean-Philippe Tanguy was only successful within its ranks.
Manga will remain included in the culture pass. The amendment tabled by RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy, which tended towards a withdrawal of these Japanese comics from the offer, was very largely rejected this Friday by the National Assembly.
The proposal did not achieve consensus: as the details of the votes show, only 14 deputies (all labeled National Rally) voted in favor of this amendment, facing 63 votes against (half of them in the ranks of the Renaissance party) .
Attractive offer
The Culture Pass allows young people to have access to individual credit to buy cultural goods such as books, manga or records. Reserved for young people aged 15 to 18, it met with great success in 2021. Emmanuel Macron announced its extension to all middle school students last August.
Jean-Philippe Tanguy’s amendment, tabled as part of the finance bill’s culture mission, aimed to “modify the commitment authorizations and payment credits” of the Pass, specifically citing manga.
“The Culture Pass is an interesting initiative, provided it is intended for truly cultural activities”, explained the deputy.
“29% of Pass recipients said they did not ‘read books’ when activating their Pass,” he continued. “However, 86% of beneficiaries reserve books with their Culture Pass (…) However, manga alone represent 54% of ‘literary’ reservations made, compared to 12% for novels and 5% for comic.”
cultural phenomenon
With his amendment, Jean-Philippe Tanguy wanted to “reorient the use of this Pass towards literature, theatre, museums or classical music concerts.”
The popularity of manga in France is only increasing. Over the first six months of 2022, sales grew by 14 million copies compared to the same period in 2019, an increase of 168%. In November 2021, a study by Weekly Books revealed that the 12 most purchased books with the Culture Pass were manga.