The impact of legislation on French cultural productions

^^ If I was ever going to do a doctoral thesis, that would be the subject.

Mondays I drive across town to tutor, and I usually listen to a mix of Virgin Radio, Toulouse FM, and Radio NEO to find some music to accompany my drive.

One of the things I've noticed in my years in France is that there are more and more "version françaises" of big music hits. One of the first times I really noticed it was when I saw this music video of a French rapper with James Blunt:



Now driving across town each week, there are constantly new songs with various mixes of English and French; sometimes the refrains are in French and the chorus in English, sometimes the opposite.

While this certainty is probably seen as cooler to teenagers, there's a bigger reason why there are more and more songs like this: they count for the CSA radio quotas.

If you didn't know it, French radio and TV have to air a minimum amount of French content during prime listening hours. The idea behind the laws voted back in 1994 was that if French radio stations had to play music by French artists, the artists would get a boost from increased radio time. TV stations have similar rules about airing a minimum amount of original content, French or European produced, etc etc. Again the idea is to support original French television content, and prevent stations from just airing dubbed versions of American or British shows they buy. Radio stations and TV stations that don't comply can be fined or have their feed cut for a short time.

If you want to get an idea of how many artists now do a "VF", check out this list of songs that qualify as 'new French productions' by the CSA. There are quite a few with titles in English or (VF) tagged onto the title. I find this new trend rather interesting, because it's a relatively new strategy of the music industry.

One of the big counter arguments against the criteria for identifying qualifying music for the quotas was that Daft Punk did not qualify because they never sing in French. To my knowledge they have never done a VF of any of their songs, but then again they don't really need to.

Interesting article about Daft Punk and the "exception culturelle"

I wanted to end my post with some more music videos featuring artists in English or French, but my search of YouTube ended with me watching a video of a cat in a chef costume trying to cook.

Here we go, this is one of the classic examples:


Another example:


I haven't looked into the issue that much or really analyzed the songs that are given a "version française" (the inconvenience of always hearing them while I'm driving: I can never write down the song!), but I see a parallel with the 60's when Eddy Mitchel and Johnny Hallyday sang mostly translations of American and British hits of the day. Back then they didn't have much choice because there were no composers or songwriters in France who could produce original songs to rival what was being written in the US and America. In some ways the French music industry has not evolved much because the majority of songs have a bit of French added to originally English language songs; the quota laws have not supported French music creation to such an extent that they are creating lots of new 100% French music.

Anyone have another song they like (or dislike) that's a mix of French and English? Anyone heard an artist speak about doing a French version of their song or otherwise collaborating with French artists?