Media outlets will have to wait, or even improvise. Since June 20, 2025, the Strategic Press Development Fund (FSDP) has been frozen, and support for press incubators suspended due to lack of available funds. It is still possible to submit an application for the emergence grant, even though applications will only be reviewed in 2026, subject to approved funding. These decisions, which went relatively unnoticed and were announced at the last minute, further weaken the already precarious ecosystem of independent media.
A sudden halt
In a note published on the FSDP page on June 11, the Ministry of Culture confirmed what Contexte revealed as early as March: no more file submissions will be accepted as of June 20. According to the Ministry of Culture, funds are exhausted. Some projects submitted at the beginning of the year could benefit from a postponement in the order of several million euros, but with no guarantee. The others will have to wait for the 2026 budget law.
« The administration only communicated at the last moment. It's very brutal, with very little time to organize », says Augustin Naepels, chief executive officer of Jours and vice-president of the Syndicate of independent online news media (Spiil), who indicates he is speaking here in a personal capacity.
The Ministry of Culture, contacted by Médianes, confirms that the freeze is due to two factors:
- Part of the FSDP credits were set aside as a precautionary reserve, a standard budgetary tool applied every year, « in order to address any unforeseen events that may occur during the fiscal year ».
- A very high number of applications: 86 files submitted between January and June 2025, requesting over 16 million euros in grants, while only 9.5 million euros were available at the start of the year.
"To date, more than 70 files are or are preparing to be supported in 2025 by the FSDP", the ministry specifies, and a final committee is scheduled for early July. A reopening of submissions could take place by the end of 2025 if some of the frozen funds were to be released.
For overall Press and Media financing under the finance bill that came into force on 14 February 2025, budget stabilization was planned, with 369 million euros in payment appropriations for 2025.
In brief for the FSDP
✅ If you submitted before June 20, 2025
Your application will be processed if funding is released in the second half of the year, otherwise in 2026.
❌ If you were planning to submit after June 20
Not possible, unless the application period reopens in late 2025 or early 2026. This will depend entirely on the next budget law.
According to Contexte sources, the Ministry of Culture is reportedly considering using part of the FSDP funds to implement the recommendations from the Soriano report on press distribution. "In practice, the FSDP is often the variable that gets adjusted, laments Augustin Naepels. Yet it's one of the most virtuous forms of aid, because it remains neutral in terms of medium [paper vs. digital] and funds innovation. "
Briefly on the emerging markets scholarship
✅ Applications already submitted
€400,000 was allocated in 2025. The rest will have to wait until 2026.
❌ New deposits
They are possible, but their processing will depend on future budget decisions.
A situation that is becoming clearer
The Ministry of Culture clarifies to Médianes that:
- The call for projects related to press incubators is suspended due to budget exhaustion.
- The Emergence Grant call for proposals remains open, but applications submitted in 2025 will only be reviewed in 2026.
- 400,000 euros were allocated to emerging media in the first half of 2025.
- The Research and Development call for projects is postponed to January/February 2026, subject to the availability of funds.
Yet these mechanisms are an essential lever for enabling often fragile structures to develop. They offer greater flexibility to make the investments necessary for economic sustainability, by developing formats, tools and models.
What the 2025 budget planned for innovation in the press
Every year, the funds allocated to press subsidies are voted on as part of the budget law. Two concepts help explain these amounts:
- AE (Commitment Authorizations): this is the maximum amount the State commits to funding. It can be spent over several years. So a 50,000 euro subsidy promised in 2024 can be partially paid out in 2025.
- AP (Appropriations): this is the money actually available to be paid out in the year. In other words, these are the amounts actually paid to beneficiaries.
In 2023, the overall budget for press subsidies amounted to 197.5 million euros in commitment authorizations and 196.5 million euros in payment appropriations. In 2024, a slight decrease was already noted, down to 195.8 million euros in payment appropriations.
For 2025, a slight decrease in the press aid program was also planned, with €194.8 million in commitment appropriations and €193.8 million in payment appropriations.
In detail, the FSDP's budget was announced as stable for 2025, with €16.3 million. In 2024, its initial budget was identical in terms of payment appropriations.
A structural problem
This situation underscores above all the structural fragility of press subsidies, particularly for independent players. The systems are complex and the timelines opaque. Most importantly, they depend on the political and budgetary agenda. «Some media outlets will have to advance their own funds or defer projects. There's no visibility for 2026, notes Augustin Naepels. The environment is increasingly unpredictable. Since the dissolution, the State has been operating without a plan. These subsidies would need to be fundamentally reformed to make them more transparent, more equitable, and above all more predictable.»
Spiil, which originated an inter-union letter deploring the reduction in FSDP credits, regularly raises the alarm about this lack of predictability. Other organizations such as the Free Press Fund or the cooperative Coop-médias are attempting to offer alternatives with pooled funds outside the state sector, but the amounts remain modest compared to actual needs.
What now?
As the back-to-school budget discussions loom, the issue could return to the agenda… if media outlets make their voices heard. Until then, pluralism, innovation, and with them, the survival of several independent news outlets, hang in the balance. « We have to be realistic: public budgets won't increase. We shouldn't fool ourselves about that. We need to learn to reduce our dependence on these subsidies as much as possible », warns Augustin Naepels.
This freeze is part of a broader context of declining press subsidies, observed notably in the United States, but also of weakening household consumption, and thus of media economic models. Faced with these uncertainties, the risks are clear: closures, slowdowns, or a shift toward models with greater dependency. There is a dual necessity: to protect public subsidies; but also, at the same time, to encourage media to diversify their resources and to limit their reliance on structurally unstable state funding.
Médianes is directly and indirectly affected by the freeze on these subsidies. The Médianes Programme is co-financed by the subsidy dedicated to press and media incubators until the end of 2025, and has no guarantee of funding for 2026. Médianes newsletters also benefited from the Emergence Grant. As for the FSDP and the Emergence Grant, many media outlets use part of these funds to cover their support from our studio on topics related to design, web and marketing.
