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1. Main trends in young people's creativity and cultural participation

2. Main concepts

Main trends in young people's creativity and cultural participation

Young people and reading

The most recent surveys confirm that the vast majority of young people in France continue to read, although reading practices tend to decline with age. The latest survey conducted by the National Book Centre (Centre national du livre – CNL) in April 2026 among 1,500 young people aged 7 to 19 found that 81% read for leisure, a figure that has remained stable compared with 2024. However, a significant decline is observed among older teenagers: more than one third of 16–19-year-olds reported that they do not read books for personal enjoyment at all.

Young people devote an average of only 18 minutes per day to leisure reading, compared with more than three hours per day spent on screens, excluding digital reading. Comic books, mangas and novels — particularly adventure and science-fiction novels — remain the preferred genres among young readers.

Digital and audio reading practices continue to develop. According to the same CNL survey, in 2024, 36% of young people have already read a digital book, while 43% have listened to an audiobook. Nevertheless, the study highlights the growing imbalance between screen time and reading time. For instance, 99% of 16–19-year-olds use social media, and more than half spend over one hour per day on these platforms.

The survey also underlines the continuing influence of the family environment on reading habits. Parental role models appear to be less present than in previous years: 18% of respondents stated that their parents “do not read books at all”, compared with only 7% in 2016. This trend illustrates the declining role of parents in transmitting reading practices to younger generations.

Cultural Outings and Cultural Participation

For the whole population, data collected in 2023 by the Credoc show that over half of the French population had gone to the cinema during the previous twelve months, around one quarter had attended a concert, and 14% had attended a theatre performance. However, nearly half of respondents stated that they go out less frequently than before the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting that cultural attendance has still not fully returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Cost remains the main barrier to cultural participation. Among those who did not go to the cinema, 54% cited ticket prices as the principal reason (Source: Credoc, 2023). More broadly, surveys conducted by the Ministry of Culture and the National Institute for Youth and Non-Formal Education (INJEP) show that young people mainly identify the cost of cultural activities (around 50%) and lack of free time (approximately 43%) as the main obstacles to participation. Transport constraints (25%) and fear of entering unfamiliar cultural environments (11%) are also mentioned.

The surveys further confirm that cultural participation remains strongly shaped by socio-economic background. Young people with higher educational attainment and those in employment tend to engage in a wider range of cultural activities than less qualified or unemployed young people. Similarly, attendance at cultural venues is generally higher in urban areas than in rural areas.

Finally, according to the National Institute for Youth and Non-Formal Education (INJEP), by early 2025, 77% of 15–24-year-olds had visited a historic monument during the previous twelve months, compared with 64% of the population aged 15 and over as a whole. Young people most frequently attended cinemas, visited historic monuments, and went to museums or exhibitions.

Watching cultural content online is also highly widespread among young people. By early 2025, 78% of 15–24-year-olds had watched a series online via a free or paid platform during the previous twelve months, compared with 68% of the population aged 15 and over.

Main concepts

Of the concepts most strongly characterising cultural public policy, it would be worth mentioning: "cultural democratisation", the notion of "heritage" and the concept "of cultural exception".

Cultural democratisation

"Cultural democratisation" defines the fact of making culture accessible to as many people as possible. This ambitious idea forms one of the cornerstones of cultural public policies – those of the Ministry of Culture more specifically. Ever since it was first created back in 1959, the latter has been "tasked with making the key works of humanity, and of France first and foremost, accessible to as many French citizens as possible […]" in the words of the writer André Malraux, ministre d’État, who was entrusted with founding the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.

For fifty years, this principle has long been the subject of debate: two approaches to democratisation have thus been pitted against each other, one so-called "elitist"  approach which involves fostering access for all to "classical" or "erudite" culture, and the other involving broadening the notion of culture and recognising cultural plurality and equality (rural or urban culture for example). These debates have shaped and organised the crafting and implementation of cultural policy. Against this backdrop, some have preferred to talk of the concept of "cultural democracy" rather than of cultural democratisation. By cultural democracy, we mean the recognition "of the diversity of aesthetic experiences", cultures and the lack of any hierarchy between the latter.

These days, the various cultural stakeholders, the Ministry of Culture included, are seeking a balance between these approaches, especially when it comes to developing cultural youth policies. Cultural democratisation and the recognition of new cultures (such as digital for example) remain at the heart of cultural youth initiatives.

Heritage

In a similar way to cultural democratisation, the notion of "heritage" is one of the linchpins of French cultural public policy. Heritage defines "the common legacy" of a society.  For a long time confined to monuments and museums, the notion of heritage has since broadened to encompass intangible cultures. According to the Ministry of Culture, these concern, for example "oral, musical or choreographic traditions, languages as vehicles of these traditions, traditional sports and games, festive events, local craft know-how and knowledge linked to what we know about nature or the universe". Heritage forms a distinct sector in its own right of cultural initiatives and policies, particularly those aimed at young people. Such initiatives set out to help young people to get personally to grips with heritage themselves.

Cultural exception

The notion of cultural exception, promoted by France since the 1980s, is based on the idea that culture is not a commercial product like any other. Although its economic dimension does need to be taken into account, the role that culture plays in the personal development of each citizen as well as that of society means that this economic sector is a common good; this then requires the public authority's involvement to ensure there is an ongoing cultural offering that is of high-quality, varied and accessible to as many people as possible.