Isabelle Giordano -- UniFrance Managing Director also contributed to this post.
As natives of France, for us there are precious few, if any, more iconic events than this week's Cannes Film Festival -- a glamorous celebration of film that inspires great pride in our country's formidable artistic creativity. When the cinema industry's extended family gathers for the 69th edition of this world event, unique in both size and influence, we can and should be proud of our cultural and creative industries. For yes, in these fields as in many others, creative France reveals its incredible, never-ending talent, its dynamism and its daring. Where sceptics cast a cynical glance betting on defeat, creative France once again demonstrates its ability to surprise and delight, to impose new, higher standards of performance.
At Cannes this year, more than half of the official selection of feature films in competition were produced by or with France. Of the more than 50 feature films screened, 31 were entirely or mostly French. Finally, from the three principal selections -- chosen from a selection of 80 screened, 51 of them were partly funded by French backers. Our country is not only the producer around whom international distributors flock to buy, it is also the second-largest global film exporter. China, which will overtake the American box office in 2017, was France's largest market in 2015.
Thanks to a bold and proactive policy, filming in France is on the rise and our country has once more become a top filming location. The results are clear: The total value of filming operations in France is estimated at €200m, representing some 10,000 jobs. In the first quarter of 2016, 19 film projects were scheduled in France, which is as many as the total for the entire year of 2015.
In other areas of the industry, French creativity is represented by the talents the world admires and envies, shining examples of "the French touch," a singular combination of imagination and mastery of the subject. Our animation schools are among the top 10 worldwide (No. 1 is Les Gobelins). And here's a revealing sign of the times: People have even said that French is the language most widely spoken in U.S. film studios. The successes of Le Petit Prince, Astérix: the Land of the Gods, and Mune, Guardian of the Moon demonstrate our real know-how and our ability to rival the greatest talents in this field. France accounts for 40 percent of animations produced in Europe, and three out of 10 films sold internationally are animations.
The cinema industry is perhaps where France's capacity to defend its cultural exception and welcome the future is most evident. The proof is that it is one of the only countries where domestic films stand on an equal footing with foreign productions, and France maintains its standing in arthouse cinema (50 percent of our 2,000 film theatres are labeled "arthouse"). This proves that France retains its avant-garde character whenever it's a question of revolutionizing habits or mindsets.
The cultural and creative industries including cinema, video games, publishing and music are a real opportunity for France. Their vitality is already benefiting the whole of society. Their €84 billion contribution to the economy and the opportunities they represent in terms of employment (1.3 million jobs today) are especially important, in particular for the young generations (in Europe, they employ more 15- to 29-year-olds than any other sector of the economy).
Opinions diverge on where France is heading, but there is at least one conclusion on which everyone must agree -- and that is the vitality of these creative industries. We possess a true national treasure that is insufficiently recognized and underexploited, poorly appreciated and even sometimes misunderstood.
The Cannes Film Festival, iconic in its ability to showcase France and extend the influence of its cinema and its culture, is also a key opportunity to illustrate and project the future of a creative France.