Dear Isabelle Giordano,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a pleasure to participate in this first Entrepreneurship in Culture Forum organized by the Ministry of Culture and Communication. In the current context, this event is essential because it reminds us that while culture is the crucible of citizenship and a vector of emancipation and freedom, it is also a formidable lever of growth and development for our territories. Culture is a promising sector, a source of jobs, innovation and attractiveness for our country.
With this Forum, I say forcefully, in the footsteps of Jack Lang: «culture and economy, same fight!». With this Forum, we reject the opposition between culture and business that has harmed the entire sector. We remind that the entrepreneur is a creator and that culture needs entrepreneurs!
Culture needs entrepreneurs because they also know how to propose innovative solutions to the founding issues of our cultural policies. They can recreate a link with the public, they reach audiences far from culture, thanks to new uses in particular.  
With this Forum, I also wanted to emphasize the diversity of cultural entrepreneurs: artists, artisans, associations, businesses and social entrepreneurs and supporters of the cultural sector, are at the heart of our country’s entrepreneurial creativity and diversity. This diversity is a chance!

Finally, with this Forum, I wanted to encourage the visibility and recognition of cultural entrepreneurship. We need to promote the culture economy and gain investor confidence. Too often, cultural entrepreneurship suffers from the ignorance and distrust of investors: we must strongly repeat that culture is a sector of the future that contributes to 3.2% of GDP. The combined weight of agriculture and agri-food industries is far from negligible!
Dear entrepreneurs, dear friends,
I would like to thank you for being so numerous in the cultural entrepreneurship field. I would like to commend the Directorate-General for Media and Cultural Industries for its mobilization throughout this Forum: 3 days to host 33 round tables and 3000 participants, it is a real success, almost an achievement!
I am pleased to be able to say a few words in the introduction to this round table on the international development of cultural entrepreneurship, which is a major asset for the cultural influence of our country.
The cultural entrepreneurs who contribute to the attractiveness and innovation of our country, are great ambassadors of French culture abroad: they instill a “desire for France”, to quote the Prime Minister.
The influence of French excellence is also the challenge of the mission I entrusted to you with Matthias Fekl, dear Isabelle Giordano, and I am sure that your conclusions will allow us to better structure and value the offer and know-how.make French companies in the cultural sector.
Today, I wanted to be here to greet all those who, through their actions, are vectors of technological creation and innovation at times, but also of social innovations, services, and uses.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are part of a modern, forward-looking cultural policy. You embody a spirit of precious conquest shared by the world of Culture.
I hope that in our country, everyone can create, take artistic risks, undertake. I want to make the Ministry of Culture and Communication the ministry of all bold, and of France a land of creation and innovation turned towards the new frontiers.
Thank you.