Ladies and gentlemen,
Ladies and gentlemen mayors,
Ladies and gentlemen elected,
Madam President of the public establishment of the Palace of Versailles, dear Catherine Pégard,
Dear Didier Fusillier, President of La Villette,
Dear Directors of Cultural Affairs,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
I am pleased to address all of you, so many of whom are here today to testify to your commitment to an innovative, exciting and unifying project.
An ambitious project that will make culture accessible to as many people as possible.
A project in which you are the main actors, to the benefit of the territories you represent as elected representatives.
Already engaged, the deployment of Micro-Funds will accelerate and expand. This device is a major asset to enable culture to meet everyone. Real technological and cultural prowess; places of life, exchange and encounter; the Micro-Funds are an opportunity for the territories that welcome them.
By their innovative and modular form, by the quality of their collections, by the strength of their territorial anchorage, Micro-Funds meet objectives that we share.
Their implementation is based on a partnership approach that mobilizes national and local actors in a logic of co-construction to which I am very attached.
It is through this mobilization of all that we can reach the ambitious prospects that I aim for the development of the Micro-Fund network.
As you know, the Micro-Funds have been designed to adapt to various reception areas.
Through this modularity, Micro-Funds have a vocation to constitute a place of cultural life for all.
Micro-Funds meet a major objective: to offer a local cultural service accessible to all citizens. Located as close as possible to the life of the inhabitants, the Micro-Funds settle in the space of daily life, which promotes their appropriation by everyone.
Micro-Funds can be installed everywhere. So far, they have naturally found their place in media libraries. From now on, I would also like them to invest in other places: shopping malls, parties, gyms… As tools for territorial revitalization, they can support local policies aimed at renewing public space.
Finally, by the diversity of uses they allow, Micro-Funds are open to all audiences. By offering spaces for creation and dissemination, exchanges and encounters, the Micro-Funds impose themselves as places of life, warm intermediate places that are essential to the cohesion of our territories.
What we want to make accessible to all is a place of openness to the plurality of artistic forms and aesthetics.
The heart of the Micro-Funds' system lies in the Digital Museum they house. An innovative and exceptional museum.
Through digital, its visitors have access to high-definition images of masterpieces from the collections of the twelve national public partner institutions.
I am thinking in particular of the Château de Versailles, which is hosting us today, the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie or the Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris. The number of works available is constantly increasing, notably through the integration of regional collections as new Micro-Funds are opened.
These collections are complemented by educational content and original proposals in virtual reality thanks to a partnership with Arte.
The objective of this encounter of works by the digital is to arouse discovery, astonishment, curiosity. Because we know that it is from this sensitive emotion that the desire arises, then, to confront other experiments or practices.
The attraction for the technological dimension of the presentation of the works, combined with a form of interactivity, also makes it possible to address audiences who do not cross the doors of the classical exhibition places.
Thus, Micro-Funds promote circulation and meetings, and must allow institutions and creators to get closer to new audiences.
I would now like to highlight the strength of the territorial anchorage of cultural projects supported by the Micro-Funds. Each of the Micro-Funds must be a point of support for the institutions supported by the Ministry, its labels, its schools, develop projects with the actors of the territories. The network of Micro-Funds will enable us to act as closely as possible to the realities of the territories.
As you well know, the deployment of Micro-Funds has already started. In Sevran, Lille and Avignon, Micro-Funds have opened their doors to the public. This deployment is the result of a partnership, based on dialogue with all the territories involved, which brings together a large number of actors to whom I address my thanks today.
First of all, I greet Didier Fusillier and his teams from the Public Park Establishment and the Villette Hall (EPPGHV), who started this initiative in 2016. Thank you, dear Didier, for having mobilized all your strength of conviction and your will to bring to this project the national public institutions through which the collections of the Digital Museum are so rich.
I therefore come to greet these institutions, fully involved in the dissemination of the major works that make up our common heritage.
It was the discovery of the richness of the Digital Museum during the inauguration of the Micro-Funds of Lens, Bruay-la-Buissière and Grenay in Hauts-de-France that made me want to accelerate and expand their deployment.
I salute the action of Jacqueline Gouraud, Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local and Regional Authorities, Ministers Sébastien Lecornu and Julien Denormandie, and their teams. Their department, through the Office of the General Commissioner for Equality of the Territories – the CGET – is supporting the deployment of the Micro-Funds through an extensive and ambitious interdepartmental partnership. This partnership provides in particular that communities acquiring a Micro-Fund can benefit from the allocations for the priority territories.
I would also like to commend the expertise of the Regional Cultural Affairs Directorates (DRAC).
Through their involvement with cultural partners and communities, they carry out an indispensable work of consultation. Their action is fundamental if cultural policy is to be fully implemented in the territories.
The deployment also relies on national coordination provided by the departments of our departments.
And, of course, I now extend my warm thanks to you, ladies and gentlemen elected officials who have chosen to embark on this adventure. You, the pioneers who understood the interest of this crazy object, but ultimately so simple, that is the Micro-Food. You who have decided to join us, and who are now part of the Micro-Fund network.
Cooperation between all these actors is what allows the successful deployment of Micro-Funds.
Together, we can come up with solutions adapted to each of the siting territories. This is why I am particularly attached to this approach of co-construction which is an integral part of this project.
As I announced on June 17, at the installation of the Conseil national des Tiers-lieux, I want to accelerate this deployment to 1,000 Micro-Funds within three years. This is a very ambitious goal. It meets a critical need for proximity.
The new development phase that is opening will make it possible to strengthen the presence of Micro-Funds in rural territories. Of course, this opening will not jeopardize our commitment to the city’s political districts and the communities that are part of the Action cœur de ville plan. These territories will remain privileged partners.
The State is strongly committed to enabling this deployment.
In 2020, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local and Regional Authorities will continue to fund the investment and start-up of the new Micro-Funds. To this end, the Ministry of Culture will double its appropriations for this project, which will be doubled next year.
The partnership between our two departments will be further strengthened. It is the key to the success of this new phase of deployment, since it allows communities to request devices adapted to the challenges of their territory. It is precisely in this context that the call for expressions of interest was launched on July 11, following the National Council of Third Places, which deals in particular with the digital factories of territory in priority areas of the city’s policy.
In order for this deployment to take place with the active participation of the territories, the drac will be particularly mobilized.
They will have full responsibility for the mapping of new settlements, in close and permanent consultation with the communities and prefects who are already their daily partners.
I also hope that the DRAC will get involved in the co-construction of artistic and cultural projects of the Micro-Funds, bringing together all stakeholders around them.
The coordination role of the DRAC should make it possible to link the Micro-Funds to other cultural and artistic projects carried by local actors. I am thinking in particular of residencies for performing artists as well as visual arts artists, actions to enhance the value of crafts... The structures labeled by the Ministry and the artists supported by the State naturally have a vocation to associate themselves with it.
Open to creative innovation, Micro-Funds must thus contribute to the discovery and promotion of new uses and artistic practices. Thanks to the partnerships that can be forged with conservatories and art schools, the initial and higher artistic formations will also be better known.
As you have understood, Micro-Funds offer a flexible, modular model that can be adapted to all territories. It is therefore up to each territory to build its own project around a Micro-Fund, a project that will facilitate its integration into local life and meet unique needs.
Also, it is up to you to imagine the multiple forms that Micro-Funds will take. I know the strength of the initiatives you are taking to bring culture to your territories.
By providing your community with a Micro-Fund, you will be able to rely on the support of the State to offer an ambitious and dynamic local cultural service.
I also call for the mobilization and support of the Regions and Departments. I invite them to join us to support the development of local museum and digital collections.
This new phase of deployment of Micro-Funds will also make it possible to continue the enrichment of the Digital Museum. It is particularly important to me that the collections of regional museums, or FRAC, are new resources to be developed throughout the network.
Thanks to the network of micro-folies and collections, a formidable dynamic of links between territories is emerging.
An example that I particularly like: by their originality, the collections of the museum of butterflies of Saint-Quentin in the Hauts-de-France have been noticed, and meet a great success... in the Micro-Folie of Narbonne in Occitanie!
The Digital Museum offers us a unique opportunity to share the works preserved throughout our territories. It is up to you to seize this formidable tool to make live our culture in all its diversity!
Ladies and gentlemen elected,
As you can see, we share a great responsibility in deploying our action. With the Micro-Funds, we wanted to set up with you an innovative and ambitious project at the service of the territories. It is up to you to appropriate it, to explore its infinite potential, to discover new ones.
It is through your action that the network that is building and expanding will live. You are the best ambassadors of this network. By joining him, you have testified to our common commitment to participate in the cultural emancipation of each one.
I am counting on you and all of us to keep this commitment alive. You can count on the full commitment of the Ministry of Culture, its operator the Public Establishment of the park and the great hall of Villette, and that of all its drac.