Preserving craft excellence
France has a wide variety of crafts, which are part of the intangible cultural heritage. The Ministry inventories intangible cultural heritage and carries out UNESCO inscription projects. It contributes to the sustainability of rare and remarkable know-how, often orphans of training.
The inventory of intangible cultural heritage (ICP) in France is available online.
The Ministry of Culture also values exceptional know-how through public procurement and grants.
The national factories, museums in France, national monuments, art schools and institutions dedicated to the performing arts, employ nearly 1,000 agents qualified in the arts. This makes the Ministry of Culture the largest public employer of crafts in Europe. Art technicians, heads of technical works and technical assistants are divided into about sixty specialties: cabinetmaker, bookbinder, upholsterer upholsterer, chandelier, heritage gardener, marbler, fontainier, etc.
Support for production and restoration sites
In addition to the national factories, the ministry supports centres of excellence in production, research and innovation.
In the field of textile crafts, the mission of creating the Domestic furniture is practiced in the three national manufactures of Gobelins, Beauvais and Savonnerie and in its restoration workshops including that installed in the International City of Tapestry in Aubusson. The City of the Tapestry federates the various links of the production chain on the Creusois territory. The Alençon and Puy-en-Velay lace conservatory workshops and the Atelier de Recherche et de Création (ARC) also depend on Mobilier National.
In the field of fire craft, the Ministry supports many operators whose national ceramic manufacture in Sèvres, which reissues old porcelain models and collaborates with designers. CRAFT, Centre for Research on Fire and Earth Arts, which accompanies the ceramic creation in Limoges, is helped by the ministry.
In the glass sector, the Meisenthal International Glass Art Centre (CIAV) or the European Centre for Research and Training in Glass Arts (Cerfav) Vannes-le-Châtel in Lorraine are accompanied. Finally, the Ministry is the partner of several structures such as the CIRVA – International Center for Research on Glass and Plastic Arts created at his initiative in 1983 in Marseille.
Third-place and local factories of crafts
Third places are places of collective and collaborative production and design, where work meets interprofessional and intergenerational conviviality. The five elements that make up a third place are local entrepreneurship, creative experimentation, the hybridization of activities, widely open living and working spaces and governance as participatory as projects.
Local factories are a State label that distinguishes in fragile territories from shared workspaces allowing professionals to develop skills with all stakeholders in the territory (local authorities, companies, etc.). ANCT inventories all the convenience stores by sector of activity. The portal of public actors of the National Agency of the Cohesion of the Territories (ANCT) lists aid to third countries.
The national association of third-places, France Third-Location collects all information in the field.
