The way it works in France is that money goes to a company that collects it on behalf of all copyright holders. Its website does not offer any documentation as to how copyright holders can claim their share.

Whoever is the director of that company must have laughed for weeks when they got that posting.

That sounds pretty shady. There's also the problem that most media generated globally is not French. Do they pretend to distribute the spoils globally?

In reality the system in these countries is pure corruption. The beneficiaries are large corporations who see it as an extra revenue stream and that's it.

Not completely. I know some french musicians who are great artists, but are not mainstream enough to sell enough records - and they do get state money to continue their art (progressive/psychedelic music, nothing tame).

Does it come from the hard drive tax though?

I would think so, but I really don't know any details.

It operates sort of like a guild. For music, there's the SACEM, where songwriters, musicians, etc. register themselves (hey I have this thing), and get help (e.g. SACEM invests in young aspiring music professionals) and royalties based on how their music was used and by whom. All music users pay SACEM for the use, and SACEM distributes the proceeds to the copyright holders.