The French culture minister has declared that home-grown videogames should be recognized as a cultural industry eligible for tax breaks.

This would give the industry the same recognition as French cinema, which received state financial support equivalent to €523 million, or £350 million, in 2004.

Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told The International Herald Tribune to, “Call me the minister of video games if you want - I am proud of this… People have looked down on video games for far too long, overlooking their great creativity and cultural value."

He added, "Video games are not a mere commercial product. They are a form of artistic expression involving creation from script writers, designers and directors."

This follows the news from earlier this year that Nintendo's gaming mini-god, Shigeru Miyamoto and a number of other leading games designers were awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of their cultural accomplishments.

Cynics however, might point to the fact that some of the major players in France’s videogame industry have been facing tough times of late: Infogrames constantly battling with debt problems; Ubisoft being part-owned by Electronic Arts; Vivendi relying perhaps a little too heavily on revenue from World Of Warcraft.

A Brussels-based group called The Interactive Software Federation of Europe, has spoken out against possible tax breaks for French games companies. Patrice Chazerand, secretary general of the ISFE noted, "The French concept of culture is that the government knows better than consumers. It is unhealthy to have the French government using discriminatory subsidies to influence video games."

Gerhard Florin, executive vice president for international publishing at Electronic Arts, added, "Similar to what happened with the French film industry, these plans will prove bad for the industry and for consumers. French cinema's financial assistance supports only a few well-connected producers who no longer need to pay attention to consumers."