Dear friends,
Music succeeds in this permanent miracle of resonating in a personal way, for everyone in a different way, while connecting us to each other. It scans our lives by offering us spaces of freedom and emotion. Youth grows thanks and through music, is built collectively thanks to it when so many other things divide it.
Let us look around us, in Europe, in our own country, the incentives to withdraw, to reject others are a reality. The denigration of culture is a temptation to which some give in. For this music festival, a group from Nantes had to refuse the contract of a municipality that imposed on it a so-called «political neutrality». the return to the Stone Age, “who pays the price”. Populism with an open and uninhibited face.
But the spirit of the music festival, this year, it is the musicians and the public who will give it.
At Pulse, in Orlando, a few days ago, as at Bataclan, in Paris, last year, culture, a way of life, a passion for music, dance, in short, the passion for freedom, that of laughing and freely loving also by massacring an LGBT club, was struck.
Many, I believe, will want to affirm through music, through their free practice, that they value these acquired freedoms, this way of life, this freedom, this possibility to gather around artists' proposals.
For my part, I wanted the historic headquarters of the department to be transformed into a real stage open to artists and the public.
The music festival is this gathering.
This year, the theme of public safety was the Fête de la Musique. A haunting theme that cannot be ignored. In full agreement with Bernard Cazeneuve, the necessary security measures were taken.
With the mobilization of the security forces for the Euro matches, some major concerts had to be cancelled [as in Paris, Place Denfert Rochereau, the FAIR event and Ricard Live Music] or postponed: Marseille will organize its music festival on June 23. These large gatherings are replaced by other forms, more modest but faithful to the original spirit of the festival of music.
After the attack on the Bataclan, to compensate for a drop in attendance, but also so that festivals, stages, circuses, could strengthen their security at the entry points, we created an aid fund, managed by the CNV.
For the performing arts to live this summer, for festivals too, we have just released 7 million euros that will double the resources already committed. It is an effort that was necessary and important to make, appreciated as such by professionals. They will not give in to cultural proposals by responsibly addressing security issues.
Beyond that, the Ministry of Culture and Communication has made constant efforts to promote talent renewal, diversity, support artistic creation and the consolidation of the music sector, for which new economic models, Finally, they are emerging.
I am thinking in particular of the means deployed to create a specialized network of rooms for the career development of musicians and singers through the completion of the «Plan Smac». Since 2012, this plan has gradually enabled the structuring of about a hundred production and show venues whose main purpose is to support developing artists. They are essential for the development of current music. (In four years, this network has benefited from an additional €4 million, including €2 million for 2016 alone.)
In total, with the completion of this plan for about 100 rooms, the State’s annual effort to contribute, alongside the partner local authorities, to the vitality of this network will reach €12 million.
I am also thinking, of course, of the phonographic production tax credit, which has been extended and strengthened in order to better support businesses, especially smaller ones. The tax credit created from this year in favour of show producers when they engage in the development of emerging artists. It is also a fund to support the digital transition of music, endowed with €2m, to contribute to the development of the legal offer.
It is of course also the strengthening of the effectiveness of radio quotas. As you know, Parliament agreed to the bill on creative freedom, architecture and heritage. I was at the National Assembly today to read the text, which will be promulgated before July 14. I welcome the presence of Patrick Bloche, rapporteur and chairman of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, who has played a major role in it.
This text reinforces the place of artists and creation in our daily lives.
It guarantees freedom of creation but also of distribution of works.
It encourages diversity, a major goal for music
through quotas, an exemplary instrument that is necessary to combat uniformity and ensure a real dissemination of French-language music.
The French song is full of talents but they still have to be heard.
But diversity on the radio is not always spontaneous.
She asks to be defended and protected.
Artists must be able to defend their luck to the public.
I proposed a measure to guarantee the real application of francophone song quotas and improve the exhibition of the diversity of artists, supported by the entire music industry, by more than two thousand artists. I would like to thank you for your explicit and massive support, which succeeded in winning the conviction of senators, who were initially sceptical about the measure. It was the opportunity for artists to make themselves known and to exist that was at stake. Quotas can no longer be made by focusing on a few successful titles.
In the long term, the results for the radios will also be extremely positive, I am sure. Their editorial line is also taken into account because strictly defined commitments in favour of young talents and diversity in the broad sense will enable them to access an adapted regime.
Promoting French-language song, guaranteeing more diversity in the titles broadcast and giving young talent and new productions their full place: this is the message we carry because there is no culture without diversity, or diversity without renewal of creation.
Finally, there is no creation without creators. That’s why we’re defending copyright in Brussels, that’s why we’ve enshrined in law, for digital uses of music, the principle of guaranteed minimum remuneration for artists—which is negotiated under collective agreement law. For this also that the law will also create an observatory of the music economy with the CNV
Above all, this year’s Fête de la musique is taking place at a time when we are going to close a long period of uncertainty and fragility for the unemployment insurance system for performers and technicians. Within a framework secured by law, with the support of this Government, the social partners were able to find on 28 April a historic agreement whose scope should be measured.
This agreement is indeed historic: for the first time, it was the social partners in the show who had the keys to the negotiation. And they took it. They found a unanimous agreement: all the partners signed it, all the employee unions, all the employers through their federation.
This agreement is fair: it is better adapted to the reality of the employment of artists and technicians of the show. He’s been responding to claims in decline for over a decade.
This agreement is responsible: it should generate €84 to €93 million in savings in full year, thanks to increased contributions from employers and also new caps. The Fund for Professionalization and Solidarity (2007 Fund, compensation component) will support two measures that are akin to national solidarity for an amount of €12M to reach the €105M in savings requested from the sector by the initial framework.
In this sense, the agreement is also exemplary, because we now know that what was successful by the employers and employees of the show was not for the general scheme.
This agreement of April 28 will enter into force in July, thanks to a decree of the Government.
The agreement is transparent, it is responsible, it will last.
In addition to this agreement, we have set up a €90m employment fund, which we are currently defining with professionals.
We must collectively measure that what has just been done is exceptional, unprecedented, fair and reassuring for these artists and technicians who make the wealth of creation in this country.
Finally, it is also the practice of music by the youngest that we want to encourage and develop.
Thanks to €8 million in new measures in 2016, the State will reinvest in conservatories, alongside local authorities, paying special attention to social diversity.
We will also accompany many initiatives that have been proven. I am thinking, of course, of DEMOS, a project developed by the Philharmonie de Paris, under the leadership of Laurent Bayle, or the work being done by the Orchestre à l'école association.
DEMOS, in partnership with local authorities, allows young people from working-class neighbourhoods and sometimes those with academic difficulties to learn instrumental practice outside the school setting or conservatory. In 2013-2014, more than 1,000 children benefited from the project. I will attend their end-of-year concert this weekend. The goal is to reach 30 orchestras or 3,000 young people by 2018.
I would also like to share my enthusiasm for the initiative that Olivier Mantéi and his team at the Opéra Comique have taken with the OpéraOké.
This work which took place over several months with audiences of adults and children of which 60% had never seen a show at the opera concluded with a memorable event last Saturday in the framework of the FanZone du Champ de mars, with the support of the City of Paris, with the Accentus choir and two magnificent solo singers.
The audience took in chorus excerpts from Carmen, of Angot’s daughter, of Chives whose words appeared on giant screens … and we must see online the diversity of contributions such as the rap adaptation of Reynaldo Hahn by the Learners of Auteuil.
As for DEMOS, I asked Olivier Mantéi to imagine how to extend this operation from next year to the entire national territory. And eventually, beyond.
We need more than ever to support these mechanisms of emancipation, towards young people or people who do not dare to take the first step towards music and singing, and who rely on the musical practice mixing professional and amateur. Better than anyone, Jean-Claude Casadesus, who was with us this evening, embodies by his lifelong commitment not only these values but their concrete implementation as you did as a precursor, 40 years ago with the Orchestre National Lille.
Dear friends,
In these times of withdrawal of imagination, of populist temptation, culture remains a formidable power of hope, a space of freedom and of listening to others.
Through the defence of creative freedom, the fight for the remuneration of creators, musical diversity on the radio, in concert halls, the strengthening of tools for music export, also through sustainability, through a responsible and historic agreement, through the intermittence regime, we have collectively found a way to give creation its space, to strengthen it, to give it the means to defend itself, to defend us. I wish you an excellent music festival, here tonight with Marvin Journo, Julien Ribot, Raphaele Lannadere and finally Jeanne Added. Thank you to them, thank you to the patrons who are with us tonight, thank you to you.