Madam President,
Chairman of the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education,
Ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly,
“The experiment we are trying is the transformation of the human condition.”
That is what Léo Lagrange said when the government to which he belonged almost eighty years ago appeared before this House, with the generous and unheard-of ambition to wrest the women and men of this country from their destiny.
Determined to prove that a life enslaved by work is not worth living,
Convinced that art and culture were the antidestin they were looking for:
to free us from our bondage,
To upset the hierarchies of an unchanging social order,
An antidestin able to gather us in a secular communion –,
Determined and convinced, the men and women of this government have engaged France in a vast movement of democratization through culture.
They did it for youth.
They did it for the working classes.
To free them from the contempt in which they were held, and to illuminate their future again.
Art and culture put at the service of a conquest, the conquest of dignity: this was the social project of the Popular Front.
And, in a France that was then hesitant to let go the prey for the shadow of the night, exhausted by years of crisis, it was a solar moment.
Of course, not everything was accomplished in 18 months. The ideal was there, and he had rubbed shoulders with reality.
It was still necessary for men and women to mobilize so that the Nation strives to give all the time and means that were lacking to access art and culture. It still needed the resolute action of successive governments, as of great popular movements.
It was still necessary May 81, that this ambition should not yield before dreams of greatness, nor before the folly of speculation or the illusory splendour of profit.
It took visionary artists and statesmen – sometimes both – generous philanthropists and bold mayors to keep this ambition alive and actively transforming the human condition.
All of this was necessary. We are heirs as much as the dependents.
The President of the Republic follows these steps.
The government to which I belong is part of those steps.
Because this way is great; because it is just and liberating.
Because, in the maquis of the real, which does not cease to mutate and to grow, it is necessary to pay constant attention to trace it, and to widen it again so as not to lose it.
We’re in a moment like this.
One of those moments when the makeup of reality grows, and can suffocate us.
One of these moments of great change, unprecedented by its magnitude, unprecedented by its nature, as humanity has known little in the past.
- Where the emergence of digital technology brings us back to that of printing, or globalization, to the discovery of America.
- Where the present seems to linger in perpetual transitions.
One of those moments of crisis, when doubt seizes us.
One of those moments when society is sinking into new fractures. Part of her discovers that she is wary of novelty, sometimes even wants to stop the march of time or to flee among the dead, in search of a first identity that never existed; she fears above all erasure.
And it is then that the malicious and extremists make their song heard: the song of withdrawal and closure.
If I am before you today to introduce this bill on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Government of the Republic,
It is because I believe that, in the world that comes, there are also real opportunities, unknown until then, for the youth of our country to have a better life and a more just life.
It is because I belong to the camp of optimists, of those who believe that the real is transformed, provided that we have the will.
It is because I am on the side of the progressives, of those who believe that a successful life is not just a life of consumption.
It is because I am convinced that art and culture, works and practices, are a mirror of our world as a response to our fears.
And it is because I am convinced that art and culture liberate us and bring us together at the same time, opening us ever more to the other.
As you will understand, this bill does not seek to define what will be art and culture in the world to come. The state is not oracle, that is not its role. It is up to the artists to invent it.
The future for art, the access of all to art, that is what the State must prepare and allow. That is its role, that is its responsibility, a responsibility that this government assumes as long as it has chosen to do so.
This bill, which has been enriched by the Rapporteur’s proposals and the debate in the Commission – and I want to commend their work today – is in fact part of a series of measures that the government has taken in favour of art and culture:
- a law on public broadcasting, re-established in its right and independence;
- A budget, which has always preserved the creation and education of art and culture, and which will be resolutely upward in 2016. I will present it on Wednesday. It was a strong commitment from the Prime Minister;
- A regime, intermittence, stabilized and now recognized by law;
- Pacts, with the local authorities, to give to all those who make culture live in our territories, the assurance of constant means;
- From Assisi, to prepare the future of young creation;
- A National Architecture Strategy to shape the future of the profession.
All those choices, we made them, all those initiatives, I made them. But this is not enough to guarantee the emergence of the arts, today and tomorrow.
If we do not prevent the temptations of extremists and malevolents who feed on our fears to attack artists, nothing will guarantee it.
If we do not prevent the artisans of the return to the moral order, and all those who assume the right to define what art can or cannot say, nothing will guarantee it.
If we do not destroy the desires of certain executives to become gallerists or directors of theatre, ready to intervene on the works, on their programming, on their diffusion;
If we do not intervene to prevent artists, anticipating censorship, opting for self-censorship, nothing will guarantee it.
Nothing will guarantee that art, now and in the future, will still have the opportunity to provoke, to reinvent itself, to unfold, to expose itself, to be shared and preserved as a legacy by future generations.
There is no guarantee that France will remain the home of art and artists.
Only the law can guarantee it. And this guarantee holds in one sentence:
“Artistic creation is free.”
“Artistic creation is free”: that is the first section of the act on which you are invited to comment.
After freedom of expression, after freedom of conscience, after freedom of the press, now we are about to institute freedom of creation.
These are rare moments when national representation has the opportunity to enshrine in law new freedoms.
They are so rare that some of you are wondering about the opportunity to do so today.
The former question its usefulness.
What’s the point?
What is the point of engraving in marble that artistic creation is free, when in practice everything tends to show that it is already free?
What good is it to want to distinguish freedom of creation from freedom of expression, when the latter already covers the former? What good is it when jurisprudence does its work?
What’s the point? That’s what I’ve heard in the last few days and months: what’s the point.
What good is it, in fact, when a mayor takes the initiative to repaint a work of art that irritates his good taste?
What is the point, in fact, when the installation of a great artist, exhibited in the park of one of our most famous monuments is disfigured, ransacked, desecrated even by vandals?
What good is it, in fact, when shows are cancelled, exhibitions pursued by the vindictiveness of activists who erect themselves as censors and destroyers of an art that they say «degenerated»?
What’s the point?
The real resists, it resists fiercely, to this «what good»! We all know here that case law is nuanced or even reversed, whereas the law is immutable. When the risk is there, only the law can rule it out.
And it is then that, among those who doubt the relevance of including freedom of creation in the law, others tell us of a new reservation. Aren’t we creating a privilege today?
Should we not add a few codicils to this freedom, lest we lose it?
Escape:
This is precisely the purpose of this article, which acts the separation of politics and the artistic.
Its objective is that art escapes us! Not culture, and I insist on this point, but art.
We need to make sure that he never again serves politics.
We need to make sure he continues to disturb.
Because an art that serves power and never disturbs, we all know here the name it bears.
Malraux once said – in 1934:
“the freedom that counts for the artist is not to do anything; it is the freedom to do what he wants to do.”
We must give this freedom to him in conscience and in trust.
The strength of this article lies in its sobriety. It echoes another founding article: “printing and bookstores are free”.
This great 1881 law on freedom of the press, which would claim today to refute its symbolic, legal and political significance?
Freedom of creation is not a freedom without responsibility, let us be clear. But rather than focusing our debates on the limits that should be brought to it – they exist and it is legitimate – rather than limiting a freedom before it has even been recognized, let us start by affirming it, by assuming it and even by claiming it.
Creation is free, without codicil.
It is free, as are its corollaries: broadcasting and programming.
It is free, not only for artists, but for all French people.
This freedom is the foundation of the cultural institution.
It must be organized and this is precisely what the following articles do, which concretely make possible the emergence of the arts of tomorrow and their transmission to all our fellow citizens. That is our responsibility.
This text provides a lasting framework for the intervention of public authorities in cultural matters. It defines the main objectives of public policies. It provides an indisputable legal basis for labels, which are one of the essential instruments of the State’s cultural action, alongside local authorities.
It also recognizes the public character of the collections of the Fonds Régionaux d'Art Contemporain and reinforces their missions. With this text, we guarantee that in the future, public authorities will always be major players in cultural life. Your Commission has ensured that in each region this shared competence of culture is fully exercised.
This text also provides a lasting framework for artists to exercise their creative freedom.
It finally recognizes the professions of the circus and the puppets by adding them to the list of artistic professions, which offers them access to social rights.
It also clarifies the relationships between performers, producers and broadcasters, making them increasingly transparent, especially for music and film.
We also propose to confirm that this approach also applies to the book by validating the order on the publishing contract.
It allows the State to regulate professional sectors that are experiencing on the front lines the great transformation of digital.
The creation of a mediator will, for example, allow a conciliation body to resolve conflicts between stakeholders in the world of music.
We will complete these provisions during the debate, in order to ensure, always in the field of music, a more equitable sharing of digital revenues: because in this matter the law of the market does not guarantee the rights of artists to a fair remuneration.
These provisions are also part of my fight for copyright with the European institutions.
It is at this scale that we will be able to weigh enough to invent new regulations to support artistic creation and its diversity.
We want this state intervention because it gives artists the opportunity to know how their remuneration will be calculated, particularly for the exploitation of their works on the Internet.
Being paid for one’s work is a necessary condition for the exercise of this freedom of creation.
This text not only guarantees the effective exercise of this freedom, it offers new possibilities for creation in the world of tomorrow.
It offers new ones, revising the training framework for aspiring artists, and allowing students in art schools to make a place for themselves internationally. It provides more protection for those who prepare these schools.
It offers new possibilities for architects, allowing them, under specific conditions, to depart from certain urban planning rules, to experiment with innovative solutions. It is this famous «permit to make», which your Rapporteur proposed to introduce in this text for public buildings, among other provisions in the bill in favor of architecture.
We want the state to play its role. Its role as regulator. We also want it to provide the space and flexibility to create.
We want to broaden the conditions under which an architect is needed. For individual constructions or subdivisions, which increasingly structure the landscapes of our country.
Their interventions will help to make this development more sustainable as well as to beautify it, because beauty should not be the privilege of a few. This is the very spirit of the National Strategy for Architecture that I have engaged.
And it is because beauty, art and culture concern all French people that this text continues to broaden the participation and involvement of all citizens in cultural life. As I said earlier, creative freedom only makes sense if it benefits everyone.
This law must therefore change the cultural life of the French.
A cultural life that does not make more room for people with disabilities is not a cultural life open to all. This bill gives them greater access to works, while adapting the right to digital.
A cultural life that does not make arts education one of its pillars is not a cultural life open to all. This was already one of the government’s top priorities, and it chose to devote more resources to it. By enshrining art and culture education in law, we affirm it as a major goal, for today and tomorrow.
A cultural life that does not allow everyone to have access to the musical practice of their choice is not a cultural life open to all. This is the meaning of the return of the State to conservatories, and the priority given to the diversification of the disciplines taught.
A cultural life that does not recognize amateur practice, that is, the strongest and most shared way of living the arts, is not a cultural life that is open to all. That is what this bill does. Today, 12 million people are involved in recognizing this practice.
A cultural life that does not seek to increase access to works in all their diversity is not a cultural life open to all. That is why you wanted to strengthen the provisions for diversity in radio programming. And in the same spirit, that cinematographic and audiovisual works are better exploited and therefore more accessible.
A cultural life that does not ensure, finally, that everyone can read and understand his heritage, the heritage of his daily life, is not a cultural life open to all. The success of the European Heritage Days testifies to this: this is a deep desire of the French. This is the meaning of the creation of “historic cities”, which will replace the Architectural, Urban and Landscape Heritage Protection Zone [ZPPAUP] and the Architectural and Heritage Development Areas [AVAP]. As each of our fellow citizens knows and recognizes the importance of “historic monuments”, everyone will know and recognize the importance of these cities.
Ladies and gentlemen, heritage, creation and architecture are being put together today in the same bill.
It is my choice, it is a deliberate choice, because cultural policy is based on these two pillars: creation and heritage. So we are legislating in those areas with the same spirit.
Today, we are extremely fortunate to have a preserved heritage, thanks to those who take care of it on a daily basis: owners of historic monuments, associations of defense of heritage, professionals who are committed to preserving it, to make it live, to value it and to restore it. Their know-how and work are recognized around the world. I want to pay tribute to them today.
I especially want them to continue to act tomorrow with the same intensity.
Heritage will therefore be protected with an equal requirement. Its preservation will even be strengthened by this law.
Thus, the Nation will now recognize in its law the World Heritage of Humanity classified by UNESCO.
It will also recognize intangible heritage, on the initiative of your Commission.
The law will make it possible to define the national domains, with an exceptional link with the history of the Nation, which will be inalienable.
It will strengthen the protection of movable objects.
It will bring new protection to the archaeological remains, which will become, after their discovery, property of the Nation and it will give more tools to strengthen our preventive archaeology.
It will even extend to the whole world our attachment to the preservation of works, where they would be threatened by wars or by barbarism, as is the case today on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
It is out of fidelity to ourselves that we are committed to further strengthen our fight against the trafficking of cultural goods, and that we propose to welcome in our territory the works threatened in their integrity. France will be on the side of the States that request it.
Heritage protection is based on a close and essential partnership between the State and local and regional authorities. What we propose to do today is to adapt this protection, taking into account 30 years of decentralization in urban planning, and drawing conclusions from the shortcomings of our legislation.
Consider that in 1962, Malraux planned 400 protected sectors. Today, there are only 105.
Of those 105, only 85 have a safeguard plan. We need to modernize our law. It will preserve the role of guarantor of the State, I ensured it.
What we bring to heritage protection is clarity and readability. For without clarity and legibility, one ends up being indifferent to the rules that protect, one ends up challenging them, and one ends up bypassing them.
Cultural life, ladies and gentlemen, is a space that brings people together and a bond that frees them.
The cultural life, Jean Zay wanted to make it a Ministry, so that next to the National Education is born and grows the National Expression.
Jean Zay wanted to free cultural life and make it grow, for the youth of France. He believed in her, and he believed in culture to invent the future. He believed in the power of imagination.
I was part of that youth in France.
Like many of you, I am one of those who owe it to public schools and culture to have been able to overcome the social determinisms inscribed in their genealogy.
We received what André Malraux, what Jack Lang offered to the coming generations: a restored and protected heritage, a fruitful and free artistic life, ever more open to all, great popular festivals.
Every generation has since found women and men to perpetuate this ambition.
Every generation has found women and men to restore to the youth this desire for boldness, freedom, this desire for creation, and to open the doors wide to them in confidence.
With confidence.
Thank you.