Netflix should be commended for respecting France’s extensive streaming regulation, the President of Lupin producer Gaumont Television France said today at Conecta Fiction.
During an on-stage interview, Degeorges gave an appraisal of how the regulations had changed the market, and said that Netflix’s response had been a mature one. The streamer and others had done “everything they could to avoid it, but they respected it.”
The laws, which dictate that streamers must invest 20-25% of their local revenues in French TV and film productions and gives production houses more back-end rights, were brought it four years ago during the global pandemic.
Global streamers openly disagree with levies and quotas, and are taking legal action in countries such as Belgium to block new local laws, but Degeorges said Netflix, in particular, had played by the rules in France.
“If France, we were very lucky because we live in a country where regulation is everywhere. We love regulation,” she said to chuckles in the room here in Cuenca. “Netflix, in my experience, has respected the law. Even if they don’t agree, they respect the law.”
Degeorges was one of several leading producers who led the fight for streaming regulation via trade body USPA, of which she is Vice President. “We had to fight to create the new regulation in which streamers would share IP with us,” she said. “Now the regulation is great and everything works.”
Gaumont is known for producing Netflix’s thriller series Lupin, which premiered in January 2021, before the rules were in place. “With Lupin I don’t own the IP,” she said. “If we did it now maybe I would, but I don’t.”
Season 4 of Lupin, which stars Omar Sy as master thief Assane Diop, is currently in production. Gaumont makes the show alongside Carrousel Studios, and Degeorges is an exec producer.
