The French president’s declaration that all 18-year-olds would get a free one-year subscription to the print newspaper of their choice has sparked a flurry of debate throughout Europe about the propriety and the possibilities behind government subsidies for newspapers.

The subsidy was part of a nine-part increase in government support of newspapers, boosting total subsidies to US$90 million annually.

In Amsterdam this week, INMA members offered up the following critiques:

• Surely, the parents of these young people living at home will give up their newspaper subscriptions and replace them with the free subscriptions their children will receive.

• The French move makes newspapers look desperate.

• Slow, conservative French newspapers will now postpone innovation and transformation strategies with this back-end subsidy.

Yet while one hand criticised, the other hand strategised how newspapers can use the French example to get government subsidies.

Newspaper executives in Belgium and The Netherlands wondered aloud how they could encourage their national governments to adopt the French model – or come up with a model of their own. Perhaps a model that would subsidise expensive print distribution.

European newspapers have long received government subsidies, though rarely has this been universal. For example, the French government subsidises the distribution of newspapers through the postal system giving every newspaper the right to be distributed nationally if they want. Similar subsidies of expensive distribution systems have been made by other governments. In Scandinavia, second-place newspapers in a region have received subsidies. There are also examples of governments subsidising Newspapers In Education (NIE) programmes, training programmes, and ongoing professional development for journalists.

Of course, subsidies come in many packages. Many governments exempt newspapers from sales taxes. In the United States, the government allows for joint operating agreements to essentially prop up second-place newspapers in local markets.

But President Sarkozy’s latest move in France is over-the-top provocative. Skeptics are aplenty, but money is money in a recession and they’re also lining up to fill their coffers.

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