France is threatening to block EU-US trade talks that Britain wants to launch at this month’s G8 summit in Northern Ireland if French demands to exclude cultural industries such as music and film are not met.
Washington, London and Brussels are pushing hard for a new transatlantic trade agreement to boost the US and European economies, with President Barack Obama swinging his weight behind the move.
But France has mounted a fierce campaign to defend l’exception culturelle – an internationally-agreed system that allows subsidies, tax breaks and quotas to protect local film, television and music industries from being swamped by mainly ùS, English-language products.