"Culture is not a luxury but an imperative duty , " pleaded Saturday Py, the director of the Festival d'Avignon, canceled due to the health crisis, in a forum published on the site of Le Monde.
Read also: A summer without the Avignon Festival, an economic drama for the theater
The playwright and director calls on the head of state to ensure that the next ministry of culture is no longer a "secondary role" ministry in government.
The two prime ministers of Culture of Emmanuel Macron, Françoise Nyssen and Franck Riester, still in charge of current affairs since the resignation of the government of Edouard Philippe on Friday, failed to convince professionals in the world of culture.
“To date, the President of the Republic has not made a big speech, has not drawn the lines of a project for France in terms of culture. Why ? It remains an enigma, none of his predecessors had forgotten it, ” wonders Olivier Py.
“We expected him at the start of his term, knowing that he was personally a man of culture. We are still waiting but this time with limitless concern. The commitment of the President of the Republic is lacking and nothing is possible without him, ” says the playwright. Before adding: "It is never too late."
The director of the Avignon Festival, which should have started on Friday but which, like the major cultural gatherings, has been canceled due to the coronavirus epidemic, would like the next Ministry of Culture to find a prominent place.
Since the beginning of the quinquennium, this ministry "has not ceased to see its scope increase and its budgets reduced" , deplores the director, deeming this state of affairs "absurd" .
However, underlines Olivier Py, Culture "is a ridiculous cost in the state budget and does more for the GDP than the automobile industry".
“ France must and can set up the largest cultural project in its history. It is neither utopian nor pharaonic, it is the horizon of our national destiny ” , he wished.
