We are February 29, 2020. The noose has been tightening for a few weeks already.
A shadow that hovers and approaches.
After an exceptional Council of Ministers, Olivier Véran, just appointed Minister of Health, announces several measures to curb the Covid-19 epidemic, which is gaining ground.
Among them, the cancellation of gatherings of more than 5,000 people in closed places.
And, the next day, the closing of cinemas and theaters in the first affected departments.
A year has passed.
With the context we know.
A very sad anniversary for professionals in the sector, still at a standstill.
But also a symbolic date, which motivated them to mobilize.
They are launching through an open letter this Monday, March 1, 2021, an appeal to the State, and more particularly, to Emmanuel Macron.
The name of this movement: #Reconnect culture.
All over Europe, rooms and museums are reopening
What these signatories, some twenty leading cultural organizations, are calling for is a timetable and a framework for reopening the premises.
Not in a month, two months, but now.
Because the silence on their future becomes deafening.
"It is a call of common sense, and extremely responsible, insists Jean-Noël Tronc, Director General of Sacem (the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers), at the initiative of this common message.
A year has passed.
We now need visibility.
Our health protocols are more and more developed.
We have enough perspective today to ask for a clear and complete framework of recovery.
"
Above all, the signatories are eyeing what is happening on the other side of our borders.
Spain has reopened its cinemas and shows, according to a strict health protocol.
Italy, museums, in recent weeks, in several regions.
England, the most bereaved country in Europe, has announced a reopening schedule… “We are talking about a French cultural exception, but where is it?
asks Marc-Olivier Sebbag, general delegate of the National Federation of French Cinemas.
It should not become an inverted cultural exception.
"
On May 27, 2020, the Orchester national de Paris performs in front of cameras but without an audience.
LP / Olivier Corsan
"We are hospitality professionals," insists Malika Seguineau, general manager of Prodiss, a union that brings together 400 producers of musical shows, comedy and festivals.
We want to say to the State:
Trust us!
“Several test concerts, in Paris and Marseille in particular, are due to be held in April, in partnership with the AP-HP and Inserm (the National Institute for Health and Medical Research).
For them, it is also about stopping the bleeding.
"The situation is catastrophic, it is an entire economy which is in the process of sinking, warns Jean-Noël Tronc.
The cultural sector is the second most affected after air travel.
In France, the loss in turnover of the cultural and creative industries amounts to 28.5 billion euros, a decrease of 32% compared to 2019, according to a study by the EY firm published in January.
Over a million jobs are at risk.
"Sitting in a chair in silence?"
It's not a concert ”
“We were docile, understanding for a year, but you have to live with the virus.
We must establish a recovery plan with this idea in mind, insists Malika Seguineau.
If we want things to happen in two or three months, we have to tell us now.
Summer is tomorrow!
"
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The last framework, proposed by the Ministry of Culture, for the holding of the 2021 summer festivals, with maximum gauges of 5,000 people, distanced and seated?
Not satisfactory, according to them: “The model that we are offered is to sit nicely on a chair in silence.
We sanitize everything!
People will lose interest, that's not a concert, ”insists the Prodiss.
The cinemas had reopened in the summer of 2020 by scrupulously applying health measures.
The ace.
LP / Paul Lemaire
Producer Olivier Darbois, its president, warns: “Music is generational.
We build our identity with it, it's extremely important.
If young people no longer emancipate themselves through music, concerts, we will see totally wild events flourish, much more dangerous, because the revolt, we feel it, it is there.
"
It is therefore a sector on its knees that calls for help.
And needs a strong signal.
“The non-reopening of theaters on December 15 was a big trauma,” says Bertrand Thamin, president of the National Union of Private Theater.
We had worked so hard to reopen.
Thanks to the helpers, we're pretty well off, but what we want is to be able to practice our profession!
And the debate on the
non-essential
was very badly felt.
"
"We can't just be consumers and workers"
Because for them, culture is not a consumer good like any other.
"Live performance, cinema, it is the pleasure of living together", insists Marc-Olivier Sebbag.
This closure is an amputation of a part of people's lives, a shared emotion that no longer exists.
We cannot just be consumers and workers.
Without culture, there is an imbalance.
We can clearly see the surge in psychiatric illnesses.
"
“The worst thing for me is that we are closed for the wrong reasons.
Not for health reasons, but for exemplarity.
So that restaurant owners are not alone, ”says Bertrand Thamin.
I insist, but there have never been clusters with us!
"
VIDEO. Culture in the street: “We're dying! "
THE CALL OF THE PROFESSIONALS
A year without an audience: culture sacrificed
Culture professionals are mobilizing as a very sad anniversary approaches.
On February 29, 2020, following an exceptional Council of Ministers, the Minister of Health announced several measures to eradicate the Covid-19 epidemic, including the cancellation of gatherings of more than 5,000 people in closed places , very quickly followed by the closing of cinemas and performance venues in the first departments concerned.
The first confined sector, culture is today one of the last to remain so.
With the approach of February 29, 2021, a date that will not exist on the calendar, cultural players wish to remind everyone of this sad anniversary, before their jobs no longer exist.
For the past year, culture has been subjected to a repetitive and unpredictable stop and go: museums, theaters, cinemas, performance halls or exhibition venues have had to close, then reopen, and close again.
It has never been able to benefit from visibility on its recovery schedule, while many shopping centers and non-essential shops were able to reopen on November 28.
This discrimination seems all the more unjustified as the President of the Republic himself hailed, last November, the major role of culture in supporting the French in this trying period: "Culture is essential to our life as citizens and of free citizens.
"
One year of confinement for culture, this means in concrete terms that a large number of artists, authors and creators can no longer practice their profession, nor make a living from their art.
The interdependence of their activities has a damaging domino effect for all creative sectors.
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Reopening of cultural places: this study that Roselyne Bachelot "looks at with great care"
The economic impact of the health crisis will be lasting for culture with massive falls in income observed at European level: - 76% for music, - 90% for live performances (source: EY study, Rebuilding Europe: the cultural and creative economy before and after Covid-19);
56% of visual artists have lost more than 50% of their income (source: ADAGP survey on the effects of the crisis and aid measures for visual artists) and we observe a 70% drop in attendance French cinemas (CNC source: Cinematographic attendance, year 2020).
In France, 1.3 million jobs carried by the cultural and creative industries are directly threatened and the impact of the health crisis has caused its turnover to drop from 91 billion euros to 62 billion euros, i.e. a loss of 32% (source: EY for France Creative, January 2021).
As many cultural professionals have feared for several months, France quite simply risks creating a “sacrificed generation” of artists and cultural actors.
Many of them will have to give up their profession, for lack of being able to live on it;
and many talents in the making will never be able to blossom.
It is a real national emergency, which calls into question the future of our cultural model.
READ ALSO>
Covid-19: one year later, New York reopens its cinemas
The confinement of culture is by no means inevitable, but on the contrary a political choice that must be debated.
Why does France not draw inspiration from the example of some of its European neighbors, who have successfully deconfined their cultural places when they find themselves in a health context equivalent to ours, or even more serious?
This is the case, for example, of Spain, whose shows and cinemas have resumed since last summer, with a strict health protocol;
or Italy, which on January 18 reopened its cultural institutions in the six regions least exposed to Covid-19.
The most bereaved country in Europe, England recently announced its strategy of deconfining culture with a reopening of theaters and cinemas on May 17, followed by the reopening of concert halls on June 21.
Across the Atlantic, cinemas will reopen on March 5 in New York.
We welcome the “experiments” in certain sectors of the live performance recently announced by professionals aimed at securing a model allowing the reopening of these performance venues, which were never able to reopen in 2020, in the context of the Covid epidemic. 19.
READ ALSO>
Covid-19: England will begin a "cautious" and "progressive" exit from its third confinement
We call on the State to deconfine culture, under conditions compatible with the functioning and the economic model of each.
Concretely, this supposes a change of method:
- Continue the negotiations for the gradual reopening of cultural establishments and give professionals real visibility on their recovery schedule and, step by step, so that they can anticipate and prepare for them as well as possible.
A festival, an exhibition or the release of a film, it can be months of preparation!
- Accelerate the implementation of the aid provided for by the recovery plan, and develop additional measures to support artists, authors and creators, and all professionals in our sectors and meet certain needs which it does not have still answered: for example the establishment of long-term financing for certain room equipment while respecting health constraints
We, cultural players, will play our full part in the essential strengthening of dialogue with the State to prepare for this recovery.
It's time to deconfinate culture: together, let's take up this challenge!
The signatories:
Adagp (Society of authors in graphic and plastic arts), Camulc (National union of cabarets, music halls and places of creation), Cipac (Federation of contemporary art professionals), Diagonal (Network national of photography distribution and production structures), FNCF (National Federation of French Cinemas), Fevis (Federation of specialized vocal instrumental ensembles), Les Forces musicales, Fraap (Federation of networks and associations of visual artists), ARP (Civil Society of Authors and Producers), Map (Network of Contemporary Music of Paris), Prodiss (National Union of Producers, Broadcasters, Festivals and Musical and Variety Venues), Profedim (Professional Union of Producers, festivals, ensembles, independent music distributors), Sacem (Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers), Scam (Civil Society of Multimedia Authors), SMA (Syndicat de
s current music), the SNSP (National Syndicate of Public Scenes, the Socle (Union of Free and Committed Cultural Organizers), the SPPF (Civil Society of Phonogram Producers in France), the SRF (Society of Film Directors), the Syndeac (National Union of Artistic and Cultural Enterprises), SNDTP (National Union of Private Theater), Technopol, Private Theaters, UPFI (Union of Independent French Phonographic Producers).
