Inspired by the success of games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, French president Emmanuel Macron declares ‘videogames are part of our culture’ and announces a new international gaming festival

One of the biggest videogames of 2025 was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a French JRPG that sold millions of copies, won armloads of awards, and earned not just one but two separate shout-outs from French President Emmanuel Macron. It must’ve made an even bigger impression on him than it first appeared, as over the weekend Macron announced a new “international videogame festival” that will take place in France.

Macron made the announcement during an address at the Lumiere Summit (via GamesRadar), a conference where governments, businesses, creators, and “cultural institutions” can collaborate on the future of “cinema and the moving image.” I assume that last bit is a just-missed translation of “motion picture,” because that’s clearly what the conference is about, but regardless, Macron used the moment to reveal his ambitions for a related-but-different effort.

“I firmly believe that videogames are part of our culture,” Macron said (Google translated), adding that games should be considered part of France’s cultural heritage, just as movies and “other creative endeavors” already are.

“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 didn’t mention Clair Obscur by name, but that has to be at the top of his mind. There’s really no bigger outwardly French videogame of the moment, and as I said, he’s called it out publicly at least twice in the past.

But there are an awful lot of other really good made-in-France videogames out there. Ubisoft, headquartered in Saint-Mandé, France, makes quite a few of them, and there’s also the Plague Tale series, Rematch, Jusant, Chants of Sennaar, Sifu, Stray, and casting a little further back, the biggest and best of them all (and this is not up for discussion), Another World.

Details of Macron’s proposed new showcase weren’t shared, but he did offer some insight into what he called “profound upheavals” in film, television, animation, and videogames, including artificial intelligence and the advent of platforms—I imagine a reference to things like Roblox, Netflix, and Paramount if it ever manages to complete 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.”

(Image credit: Emmanuel Macron (Twitter))

France already has one big videogame festival, Paris Games Week, but it’s possible Macron is envisioning something more in the way of a cultural exchange program rather than a business-oriented event. We’ll have to wait and see for that, just as we’re now waiting to see what Clair Obscur developer Sandfall Interactive gets up to next.

About