Income continuity for artists

The brochure "Pour une continuité de revenus des artistes auteur.ices", published in November 2023, is the fruit of the work of the Communist Party's Culture Commission and a working group comprising members of the La Buse collective, SNAP-cgt and STAA. This 25-page text sets out the facts concerning the social protection of artists and authors. Considered by law both as self-employed and as "rentiers" of their intellectual heritage, France's 270,000 artist-authors live in a situation of endemic poverty, which the Racine Report in 2019, then the Covid aid monitoring, have largely highlighted.

) of the bill tabled in February 2022 at the National Assembly by Pierre Dharréville, PCF delegate for culture and deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône, and the Gauche démocrate et républicaine (GDR) group. The aim: to put the proposal back on the table for discussion by the French Cultural Affairs Commission. In the preamble, the text reiterates the obvious: "the author]]>ice is indeed performing a work", "the simple fact that the author]]>ice remains the sole]]>e non-salaried]]>e during the exploitation of the work induces the need for an in-depth reflection on this particular status. It is therefore surprising that there is no mechanism comparable to unemployment insurance for artists/author]]>ices, guaranteeing them, like other workers]]>ses, a continuity of income". The text first recalls eloquent facts (citing in particular the 2020 " Racine report ", according to which the overall median income for female visual artists is 10,000 euros per year, compared with 15,000 for male visual artists), preconceived ideas about the "métier-passion" and the fulfilling life of an artist, and the imbalance in relations with "downstream players (publishers, producers, distributors)". The essential proposal is then set out: to integrate artist-authors into the unemployment insurance pool, taking into account their various artistic incomes (royalties, invoices, grants, etc.) over the last 12 months, opening up a right to compensation (1,200 euros net per month) from 300 hours Smic (3,456 euros gross), financed by an increase in the rate of contribution from broadcasters. The objectives: not only to improve the daily lives of artists by ensuring continuity of income, but also to promote the idea that salary is a personal right that should be disconnected from activity.