Editing Culture of France (section)

===Books, newspapers and magazines===
{{Main|French media|French literature}}
[[File:Siège_Figaro,_14_boulevard_Haussmann,_Paris_9e.jpg|thumb|''[[Le Figaro]]'' was founded in 1826 and it is still considered a [[newspaper of record]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Le Figaro |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |date=5 October 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/206556/Le-Figaro}}</ref>]]

France has the reputation of being a "literary culture",<ref>Theodore Zedlin, quoted in Kidd and Reynolds, 266</ref> and this image is reinforced by such things as the importance of [[French literature]] in the French educational system, the attention paid by the French media to French [[book fair]]s and book prizes (like the [[Prix Goncourt]], [[Prix Renaudot]] or [[Prix Femina]]) and by the popular success of the (former) literary television show "[[Apostrophes (talk show)|Apostrophes]]" (hosted by [[Bernard Pivot]]).

Although the [[list of countries by literacy rate|official literacy rate]] of France is 99%, some estimates have placed [[functional illiteracy]] at between 10% and 20% of the adult population (and higher in the prison population).<ref name="Kidd and Reynolds, 261">Kidd and Reynolds, 261.</ref>

While reading remains a favorite pastime of French youth today, surveys show that it has decreased in importance compared to music, television, sports and other activities.<ref name="Kidd and Reynolds, 261"/> The crisis of [[academic publishing]] has also hit France (see, for example, the financial difficulties of the [[Presses universitaires de France]] (PUF), France's premier academic publishing house, in the 1990s).<ref>Kidd and Reynolds, 266.</ref>

Literary taste in France remains centered on the novel (26.4% of book sales in 1997), although the French read more non-fiction essays and books on current affairs than the British or Americans.<ref>Kidd and Reynolds, 258 and 264.</ref> Contemporary novels, including French translations of foreign novels, lead the list (13% of total books sold), followed by sentimental novels (4.1%), detective and spy fiction (3.7%), "classic" literature (3.5%), science fiction and horror (1.3%) and erotic fiction (0.2%).<ref>Kidd and Reynolds, 265.</ref> About 30% of all fiction sold in France today is translated from English (authors such as [[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]], [[John le Carré]], [[Ian McEwan]], [[Paul Auster]] and [[Douglas Kennedy (writer)|Douglas Kennedy]] are well received).<ref name="Time">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686532,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071125122548/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686532,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=25 November 2007|title=In Search of Lost Time|first=DONALD|last=MORRISON|date=21 November 2007|access-date=21 August 2017|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref>

An important subset of book sales is comic books (typically [[Franco-Belgian comics]] like ''[[The Adventures of Tintin]]'' and ''[[Astérix]]'') which are published in a large hardback format; comic books represented 4% of total book sales in 1997.<ref>Kidd and Reynolds, 264.</ref> French artists have made the country a leader in the [[graphic novel]] genre<ref name="Time"/> and France hosts the [[Angoulême International Comics Festival]], Europe's preeminent comics festival.

Like other areas of French culture, book culture is influenced, in part, by the state, in particular by the "Direction du livre et de la lecture" of the Ministry of Culture, which oversees the "Centre national du livre" (National Book Center). The French Ministry of Industry also plays a role in price control. Finally, the [[Value added tax|VAT]] for books and other cultural products in France is at the reduced rate of 5.5%, which is also that of food and other necessities ([[:fr:Taxe sur la valeur ajoutée|see here]]).

In terms of journalism in France, the regional press (see [[list of newspapers in France]]) has become more important than national dailies (such as ''[[Le Monde]]'' and ''[[Le Figaro]]'') over the past century: in 1939, national dailies were 2/3 of the dailies market, while today they are less than 1/4.<ref>Kidd and Reynolds, 232.</ref> The magazine market is currently dominated by TV listings magazines<ref>Kidd and Reynolds, 236</ref> followed by [[news magazine]]s such as ''[[L'Obs]]'', ''[[L'Express (France)|L'Express]]'' and ''[[Le Point]]''.