Published on June 26, 2024 at 8:00 p.m.
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Directors, choreographers, performers, actors and actresses, the young generation of performing arts is mobilizing and calling for an artistic and cultural response. Whatever happens on July 7th.
This article is a column, written by an author outside the newspaper and whose point of view does not commit the editorial staff.
No author of political fiction would have dared, and yet here we are.
June 2024, the youngest elected head of state since Napoleon Bonaparte has just dissolved the National Assembly. He charges his Prime Minister (the youngest of the Ve Republic) to win the legislative battle. Nobody believes it and France is about to elect its first far-right Prime Minister. The latter is even younger than all the others.
June 2024, the third age is in disarray: Alain Finkielkraut imagines himself forced to vote for the heirs of the revisionists, and Dominique de Villepin writes in “Le Monde Diplomatique”.
June 2024, the left unites and the strategy of “Front against Front” by Jean-Luc Mélenchon (marginalized but still there) matures twelve years after being formulated.
Finally, Rachida Dati (!!!) is on the way to becoming the Minister of Culture with the shortest mandate of the Ve Republic. From his action – from which we expected nothing – we will still note a budget cut of 200 million euros, including 96 million for creation. Thank you goodbye !
As for the world of live performance – which never lacks pride – it is torn apart over the thorny question of its own responsibility.
So, its dean, Ariane Mnouchkine, is bitter: her utopia created at the Cartoucherie de Vincennes would therefore be disconnected from the rest of the French?
The generation below (which is no longer very young) reproaches him: “Do your self-criticism if you want, comrade, but don’t put us all in the same bag! »
The younger generation – still too young to be at fault – is worried: “What will we all do when the National Rally deputy comes to shake hands at the inauguration of our open-air theater festivals? Festivals in the heart of so-called “peripheral” France because, yes, we did not wait for the rise of identity withdrawal to bring theater where it did not yet exist.
We can laugh. We can also cry about the general impotence in which we are immersed. We can act, finally, because as Claudel said, “the worst is not always certain”. In fact, if this is not the first crisis our generation has faced – have we ever known anything else? – it certainly won’t be the last either. So take heart!
Take our part
We, the young generation of performing arts, affirm it: whatever happens on July 7, the cultural world will have to take its part.
We will have to take a clear look at the reasons which have led culture not to have the political weight that we would like it to have. We must understand that the cultural world and the population no longer understand each other. This in no way detracts from the value of the tens of thousands of professionals, who still make France a great country of culture today.
Whether the National Rally wins the elections or does not win them (which is what we hope), the part of the people who feel neglected and despised will remain unchanged, or even continue to progress. This electoral and social dynamic is not inexorable. Countering resentments, calming anger, bringing together populations of all social classes, these are the tasks in which we must take part with our artistic strength.
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Whatever the polls say on July 7, the social and climate emergency will always be there, these fights will have to be fought with and for the population.
For an artistic and cultural response
Whatever happens, from July 8 we will have to be at the forefront, with the weapons we have, those capable of creating and propagating new imaginations. We will still have to ask ourselves the question of the intelligibility of our works, of our capacity to establish relationships with the entire population. We will have to continue to politicize ourselves to formulate a new cultural policy pact and little by little, through hard work, find the path to a true popular public service of culture.
Our response is that of a united front for an artistic and cultural response. Our resistance is an offensive.
This forum was proposed by Victorien Bornéat, Maya Ernest, Hugo Roux and Hugues Duchêne. It was signed by more than 250 artists from the young generation of performing arts including Jeanne Desoubeaux, Louis Arene, Victoria Quesnel, Simon Falguières, Salomé Diénis Meulien, Zakary Bairi, Mélanie Charvy, Hugues Jourdain, Louve Reiniche-Larroche and Samuel Valensi. The full list of signatories can be found here.
