Chiffres clés de la culture et de la communication 2018

In France, spaces for the creation, conservation and distribution of arts, heritage and culture are manifold. There are more than 16 000 public reading spaces and more than 500 official libraries, more than 2 000 cinemas, and 5 800 screens, 440 performance spaces certified by the Minister for Culture, 1 200 museums certified "Musée de France" and around 40 national museums, 51 art centres, and 23 regional contemporary art collections, as well as 400 notable gardens, nearly 200 art and history towns and regions, and 535 000 archaeological entities.

French people clearly make the most of this. In 2016, 42 million of them went to the cinema, the 70 national performance spaces recorded more than 2.4 million spectators, and the five national theatres sold more than 764,000 tickets for the 2015-2016 season. In addition, 16% of the French population are members of a library. Among the 88% of French people who use the Internet, eight out of ten have used it to access cultural goods over the last 12 months.

A source of both attraction and wealth, culture draws in tourists from both France and overseas and accounts for 2.2% of GDP. To gain a better understanding of the cultural field, this 2018 edition of Key Figures in Culture and Communication provides 35 fact sheets, organised into six main chapters, which constitute an essential quantified representation of the issues facing this sector.