During her general policy speech to the deputies of the National Assembly, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne confirmed her desire to abolish the television license fee as of this summer 2022.
The French government has been talking about the end of the television license fee for years. Already in 2018, the abolition of this tax which weighs on French households was part of the promises of the first Macron government. Finally, the TV fee was maintained and for a time, the deputies put forward various ideas to modify the method of calculation.
In particular, it was a question of calculating it on the size of families, or even of making it proportional to household income. The previous Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot had even mentioned the possibility of applying it to smartphones and computers, before changing her mind.
Eventually, all these ideas ended up in the trash, and Emmanuel Macron made the abolition of the TV license fee one of his campaign promises to run for a second term as head of state in 2022. After the victory of the outgoing president, the government has made it known that it intends to ratify the abolition of the tax as of the summer of 2022.
Elisabeth Borne confirms the end of the TV license fee this summer
A measure confirmed this Wednesday, July 6, 2022 by the new Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne during her general policy speech pronounced before the deputies of the National Assembly. “We need to stop thinking that for every challenge the solution is a tax, not a tax hike. In total, we have lowered French taxes by more than 50 billion during the previous five-year term. From this summer, we will keep our word. The abolition of the audiovisual license fee could save 138 euros for more than twenty million households”, said the head of government.
More precisely, this tax affects 26.7 million households, distributed in France and in the DOM-TOM. Only households without a TV set or those under income conditions (for those over 60) are exempt. Without surprise, the abolition of the tax will have a significant impact on the budget of France Télévisions in particular, which benefits from 66% of the total envelope (ie an allocation of 2.481 billion euros). The losses will also be sizeable for Radio France (16%), for INA (2%), or even for Arte (7%) and France Médias Monde (6%).
