Between Emmanuel Macron and video games, an ambiguous story

2023-11-11 12:00:05
Emmanuel Macron plays the racing video game “Trackmania” next to Adrien Nougaret, aka ZeratoR, during a meeting with representatives of French e-sport at the Elysée, in Paris, June 3, 2022. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

Although not a gamer, Emmanuel Macron seeks to create bridges with video games. In less than two months, the President of the Republic has just published two statements of support for the players in this industry, as well as their public. “The video games sector provides thousands of jobs: six hundred studios in our country, remarkable schools (…)vocations, it is also a culture, a part of French culture”we can hear him say in the latest statement, a short video broadcast on social networks (TikTok, Instagram and Twitch), Sunday November 5.

In particular, he announced the granting of his “high patronage” to the video game museum project led by videographer and entrepreneur Benoît Theveny, better known under the pseudonym Tev. He also mentions the Paris Games Week show, an event organized by the Union of Leisure Software Publishers (SELL), which ended the same day and which brought together more than 180,000 people, according to its organizers.

The brevity of the message counterbalances the length of the previous one on the subject, published on September 16 on X (ex-Twitter). At the risk of exhausting the reader, the Elysée has sought not to forget any facet of a complex sector: Emmanuel Macron is enthusiastic about “entertainment, a show” and also rents the “ground for artistic experimentation” what “the competitive practice which is similar to a sport” where the “places of sharing” that video games offer to players. He highlights the “opportunities for employment and the future” represented by the largest cultural industry in France: 5.5 billion euros in profit in 2022, according to SELL.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Video game museums in France, a story between enthusiasm and failure

But the statement was above all a mea culpa from the president. “I made the gamers jump”, he admits at the start of the message. On June 30, during the riots which followed the death of Nahel M., Emmanuel Macron declared that ” some [jeunes vivaient] in the street the video games that intoxicated them ». The antiphon consisting of seeing a cause and effect link between video games and real acts of violence did not fail to provoke a reaction from the millions of French players and professionals. By using it, this young president – ​​born five years later Pongthe first big video game success – seemed to be a generation late.

A predilection for e-sport

The release was all the more surprising given that the Head of State has, for several years, established a relationship with the world of e-sport and its streamers. Competitive video gaming only represents a small part of the video game sector: it brings together 11.8 million fans in 2022, according to France Esportagainst 39 million players in France, according to SELL. But it occupies a large part of presidential communication on the subject.

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