Since 2000, the Forum de Blanc Mesnil has been a Convention stage and has benefited from €2 million in cross-financing over three years between the City of Blanc-Mesnil, the State, the Ile-de-France Region and the Seine-Saint-Denis Department. On the occasion of its last City Council, the City of Blanc-Mesnil decided not to renew the agreement that bound it to the Forum.
The Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Ile-de-France Region and the Seine-Saint-Denis Department deplore this unilateral decision of the City of Blanc-Mesnil, who intervened when the Director of the Forum had made concrete proposals to the municipality in the direction of a transitional season, which would have enabled the school management to find a link with the new orientations of the municipality.
The City of Blanc-Mesnil also intends to take over the management and direction of the Forum, which could then become a municipal theatre, and thus propose its own cultural choices. With this decision, the municipality chose to waive the Forum theatre’s contract for its creative activities and residencies for emerging artists.
This decision places the State in the obligation to «deconvention» the theatre, mechanically resulting in the loss of subsidies associated with the convention. Twenty jobs are directly threatened by this decision.
It results in the loss of a major cultural operator in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, which actively participates in achieving public policy objectives: the production and dissemination of innovative works reflecting the diversity of contemporary creation, but also the diversification and expansion of audiences.
The Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Ile-de-France Region and the Département de la Seine-Saint-Denis would like to recall that over the past 14 years the Forum/Stage Convention has played an exemplary role both in the revelation and accompaniment of many emerging artists and in the encounter and discovery for audiences of contemporary artistic creation in all its components (theatrical, choreographic and musical); 70% of the venue’s spectators are residents of the Ville du Blanc-Mesnil.
The Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Ile-de-France Region and the Seine-Saint-Denis Department will pay particular attention to the situation of the artists and technicians affected by this decision. They wish to maintain a collective cultural ambition that has made the success of the cultural policies engaged in the territory and that must be able to continue to benefit everyone.