Dear Hervé Schiavetti,
Mr. Speaker, dear Hubert Védrine,
Director, dear Sam Stourdzé,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
How good it is to be here.
How good it is, each time, to find this city which is not only for me an anchor, a piece of life, but which remains a model:
- a model of what culture can do: what it can do for a territory, for its inhabitants, for society;
- a model of joint commitments, which you all represent here: elected representatives, artists, cultural actors; a commitment in which I have taken part; a model for which I have fought, on my own scale;
- a model that continues to guide me on a day-to-day basis over the past year in the positions I have the honour of holding.
A model that obviously owes much to the Rencontres, and to the founding fathers who had the audacity to imagine them nearly half a century ago.
I want to pay tribute to these pioneers: Lucien Clergue, Michel Tournier, Jean-Maurice Rouquette.
I would like to thank all of you who continue this legacy: thank you to all the teams and partners who make the Rencontres possible, year after year.
Thank you for extending these Meetings.
These Encounters with the world, with history, with the future.
Meeting with the world and its turbulence this year, in the America Great Again course, which I am eager to discover.
Meeting with social fights, too, and I want to thank the programmers who make Arles, once again, a committed festival:
I am thinking of the place given to women photographers: Laura Henno, Jane Evelyn Atwood in particular.
They will also be in the spotlight this autumn in «Paris Photo»: a tour on women photographers will be conducted by Fanny ESCOULEN, whom I appointed exhibition curator; a day of debates around the place des femmes-artistes will also be organized.
The fight for gender equality remains ahead of us and cultural actors must be at the forefront.
You have taken responsibility here and I want to thank you for that.
Arles is also this year the meeting with history, and especially the year 68.
It is the encounter with the future, with increased humanity…
It is the encounter with convictions, indignations, passions.
The encounter with art that is more necessary than ever, and that I am here to defend, promote, protect, with the greatest will.
In my opinion, the Ministry of Culture has a triple responsibility:
Help photography to live;
To last;
And to enlighten society.
To allow photography to live, first, is to make live its artists-authors.
I know the concerns. They are legitimate.
For years, they have felt that they are not being heard. They have felt that the reforms are being made without them. Let their situation deteriorate without successive governments reacting.
Today, I want to tell photographers, as well as the 270,000 artists and authors who make up our country – writers, composers, choreographers, illustrators, visual artists, designers, etc. I want to tell them that things have changed.
That this time they will be listened to.
They will always have me at their side: to defend their value, their recognition, their conditions of work, creation and existence.
These are commitments that I have carried for forty years as editor.
I have been wearing them with the same strength for a year as a minister. I did not let my guard down once: I rose, both in France and at the European level, as soon as creative freedom was attacked; as soon as copyright was in danger. I didn’t leave one fight, one artistic discipline aside.
Last week, I launched a consultation with representatives of the various artist-author professions to answer the questions raised point by point. My line is clear. It is based on two pillars:
The defense of their social protection;
Defending their purchasing power.
Making the choice to be an artist should not, in this country, mean systematically making sacrifices.
- With regard to the specific social system of artists-authors:
We have expressed ourselves very clearly with Agnès Buzyn: it is not a question of coming back, it will be maintained as part of the social reforms initiated by the Government.
We will ensure the quality of services, and we will also work to improve service and simplify procedures.
A number of technical solutions have to be defined to accompany the maintenance of this regime through the reform of the general system: the consultations initiated with professionals last week will make it possible to find them.
I proposed a timetable and a working method that were accepted.
- I’m here to protect their purchasing power:
This is the meaning of the battle I am leading in the context of the reform of the CSG, so that a solution of lasting compensation is found for the artists-authors. I launched a mission with Agnès Buzyn that will bring her answers this week.
To support creation and allow photographers to live from their profession, I also believe in public commissions. We launched a new major national commission in early June, in partnership with the Centre national des arts plastiques, the Centre régional de photographie de Douchy-les-Mines, and Diaphane, a photographic centre in Hauts-de-France, which I thank for their commitment. The order and exhibition will be supported up to 300,000€.
The battle for purchasing power also involves my battle for copyright and the fair remuneration of all artists and creators.
I know the concerns of professionals and photo agencies. We had a number of officials from the department here last week, and they brought to our attention the fragility of the sector.
Here again, we will give the photographers all the necessary answers. My department will coordinate the consultation within the framework of the Parliament of photography. We have already defined with the professionals five projects:
First, the right of photographers to exhibit. This is a priority for me: it is no longer acceptable that artists are no longer paid by the institutions and cultural events that present their works. That has been the practice for years. I think it has lost its place.
The Rencontres d'Arles have decided to show the way, this year paying a fee to all the photographers exhibited: I welcome this model approach and I hope that it will become the norm.
We will define a new system. I have decided to entrust Béatrice Salmon, Deputy Director of the Artistic Creation Directorate in charge of the plastic arts, with the management of this project. The objective is to have reached a solution by October to approve it at the Parliament’s plenary session of photography scheduled for the end of the year.
Second project: the freedom of syndication of photographers, that is, the possibility for a photographer to choose whether or not to resell his images to press groups without going through the accompanying photographic agency. This method is increasingly imposed on photographers in a global market that takes little account of artists-authors' incomes. It must not become the rule.
Third project: compliance with payment deadlines for photojournalists by press groups. As of 1 April this year, there were nearly half a million euros of unpaid bills, with a payment deadline of up to 174 days. We will condition the aid to the press to respect the payment deadline. We work on framework agreements for photojournalists and their agencies.
Fourth project: the remuneration of photographers according to the media, and especially in cases where a photo is used for both a paper and a digital medium. It is necessary that a discussion opens between the agencies of photographers and the publishers of press.
Finally, a final project on the working conditions of news agencies to ensure that the conditions are met so that they can exercise their activity under fair competition rules and benefit from better visibility for photographers.
I am waiting for proposals on these five projects by the end of the year.
The second responsibility of the department is to help photography last.
This is the whole issue of the mission that I entrusted to Sam STOURDZÉ here a year ago, on the development of a policy of identification, conservation and dissemination of photographic collections.
This mission was based on the observation that the ministry had not set up for photography what it did for other disciplines, namely a census and a systematic collection of prints and films left by the artists at their disappearance.
We are letting major works fall into oblivion or obsolescence, while we are fortunate to have in France a multiplicity of structures capable of hosting them, throughout the territory – museums, libraries, archives. Too often, families do not take action or do not know where to go.
I want to accompany photographers or their rights holders, and facilitate donations to public institutions.
The creation of the Delegation for Photography made it possible to partially respond to this challenge, by bringing out a single and visible interlocutor.
But I wanted to be able to deepen the reflection, and its operational translation.
Sam gave me his report in mid-June, with a series of essential proposals: I want to thank him again for this work.
In particular, it proposes to build a «faitière» structure that would coordinate a network of actors in the territory, to identify the funds and draw up at the same time the list of places likely to host them.
We will move forward on the proposals.
Several local authorities are invested in this subject: they will be able to rely on the ministry to finally respond to this challenge, ensure the conservation and the valorization of works left by major artists in our country.
The third responsibility I wanted to mention, finally, is to help the photograph illuminate.
Supporting creators is not enough to support the power of their images.
We must also help society to apprehend them.
This is a major challenge, urgent at a time of «fake news», photomontages more real than nature and made for manipulations.
No one should think they’re safe.
We are all likely to be trapped.
Education is the key.
It is necessary to train the new generations: to make them aware of the danger, to help them recognize the false of the true; and beyond the false images, more broadly, to enable them to grasp and appreciate the aesthetic, intellectual, documentary value of the works.
There is no saving to be made on this.
I doubled my department’s budget for image and media education this year.
I am pleased to be able to announce today that we are going to bring 200,000 € to the Diagonal Network, which brings together eighteen arts centers engaged in photography education throughout the territory.
The network already deploys nearly 1,000 training workshops throughout France: in schools but also in social centers, rehabilitation centers, or in hospitals. They already benefit 15,000 citizens.
The exceptional support of the ministry will allow Diagonal to wear a new national photography education device, to reach even more people. Very concretely, this support will allow 200 additional workshops to be launched throughout France, representing more than 1000 additional hours of training and affecting nearly 2,000 additional people.
To open the doors of photography to the new generations in particular, I count on the Pass Culture.
We launch the experiment in September.
We count on the mobilization of all places and events that highlight photography: museums, galleries, festivals.
You are destined to occupy a privileged place on the Pass, which will highlight the public cultural offer and the local cultural offer.
I am delighted that Les Rencontres have decided very quickly to join the adventure and are among the first festivals to sign: we will sign today a protocol of commitment so that the cultural offer of the Rencontres is available on the Pass Culture.
I really want to thank the teams for this mobilization, and I want to invite all festivals in France to follow this path.
The Pass Culture is an opportunity for the youth of our country.
But it is also an opportunity for cultural actors and photographers: the chance to gain more visibility, and to meet new audiences.
Ladies and gentlemen, these are the messages I wanted to convey to Arles today.
These meetings make France a world land of photography.
This is a chance.
It’s a pride we owe you.
And it is a responsibility for me, for my ministry:
the responsibility to guarantee the freedom of photographers who take their daily risks to document or capture the beauty of the world;
freedom through rights, protections and fair remuneration;
a freedom that has no price, and for which I will fight by all means.