French video game policy refers to the strategy and set of measures laid out by France since 2002 to maintain and develop a local video game development industry in order to preserve European market diversity. History Proposals for government support The French game developer trade group, known as Association des Producteurs d'Oeuvres Multimedia (APOM, now "Syndicat National du Jeu Video") was founded in 2001 by Eden Studios' Stéphane Baudet, Kalisto's Nicolas Gaume, former cabinet member and author Alain Le Diberder, financier and former journalist Romain Poirot-Lellig and Darkworks' Antoine Villette. APOM was for established for game developers only, since game publishers were already grouped under the umbrella of the Syndicat des Editeurs de Logiciels de Loisirs (SELL). In November 2002, the Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin visited Darkworks, and formally asked game developers to submit him a set of proposals, promising to meet again in Spring 2003 to give his feedback. Confronted by the bankruptcies or difficulties of many studios such as Cryo, Kalisto, Arxel Tribe, APOM had to propose short term solutions as well as long term, growth-oriented measures to the French government. Video game professionals responded in March 2003 with a set of proposals, including several options to set up a long term financing system to develop quality video games for the European and international market. Era of government support On April 19, 2003, the Prime Minister announced the creation of the Ecole Nationale du Jeu Video et des Medias Interactifs, a national school dedicated to the education of game development executives and project managers. He also announced the creation of a 4 million euro prototyping fund for games managed by the Centre National de la Cinematographie, the "Fonds d'Aide pour l'Edition Multimédia" ("FAEM"), and that he would order a report to be drafted in order to determine and to answer the needs of the game development industry with regards to international competition and financing issues. The report was delivered to the Prime minister and the minister of Finances in January 2004. Depicting an accurate state of the game industry in France, it retained the APOM idea of a tax credit on game production expenses and made other proposals in order to develop the game development industry over the long term. In July 2004, the Finance ministry formed a video game task force to draft the measures proposed by the Fries report. A group of game industry members, led