Gap Continuity of Multimaps

We introduce a notion of continuity for multimaps (or set-valued maps) which is mild. It encompasses both lower semicontinuity and upper semicontinuity. We give characterizations and we consider some permanence properties. This notion can be used for various purposes. In particular, it is used for continuity properties of subdifferentials and of value functions in parametrized optimization problems. We also prove an approximate selection theorem.