One of the largest videogames of 2025 was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a French JRPG that offered thousands and thousands of copies, received armloads of awards, and earned not only one however two separate shout-outs from French President Emmanuel Macron. It should’ve made a fair greater impression on him than it first appeared, as over the weekend Macron introduced a brand new “international videogame festival” that may happen in France.
Macron made the announcement throughout an handle on the Lumiere Summit (through GamesRadar), a convention the place governments, companies, creators, and “cultural institutions” can collaborate on the way forward for “cinema and the moving image.” I assume that final bit is a just-missed translation of “motion picture,” as a result of that is clearly what the convention is about, however regardless, Macron used the second to disclose his ambitions for a related-but-different effort.
“I firmly believe that videogames are part of our culture,” Macron stated (Google translated), including that video games must be thought-about a part of France’s cultural heritage, simply as films and “other creative endeavors” already are.
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“Therefore, we will create an international videogame festival conceived from the outset as a major global event for creativity, innovation, gamers, and the industry. The great global successes of French videogames remind us of the richness of this creative endeavor, this creativity, which is also an industry. We must further celebrate it and strive to gain everyone’s support.”
Macron did not point out Clair Obscur by title, however that must be on the high of his thoughts. There’s actually no greater outwardly French videogame of the second, and as I stated, he is referred to as it out publicly not less than twice up to now.
But there are an terrible lot of different actually good made-in-France videogames on the market. Ubisoft, headquartered in Saint-Mandé, France, makes fairly just a few of them, and there is additionally the Plague Tale collection, Rematch, Jusant, Chants of Sennaar, Sifu, Stray, and casting just a little additional again, the largest and finest of all of them (and this isn’t up for dialogue), Another World.
Details of Macron’s proposed new showcase weren’t shared, however he did provide some perception into what he referred to as “profound upheavals” in movie, tv, animation, and videogames, together with synthetic intelligence and the arrival of platforms—I think about a reference to issues like Roblox, Netflix, and Paramount if it ever manages to finish the Warner acquisition—that “are transforming our habits.”
“Faced with challenges that know no borders, no nation can act alone. That is why, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France and South Korea—two great nations of creation committed to cultural diversity and their sovereignty—are bringing together those who create, produce, finance, distribute, innovate, and decide. Our ambition: to forge new alliances between creators and technologies, public and private actors, cinema, television, platforms, and video games. So that this revolution opens up new possibilities without homogenizing our imaginations.”
France already has one huge videogame pageant, Paris Games Week, however it’s attainable Macron is envisioning one thing extra in the way in which of a cultural change program slightly than a business-oriented occasion. We’ll have to attend and see for that, simply as we’re now ready to see what Clair Obscur developer Sandfall Interactive gets up to next.