Mr. Member, Jean-Luc Laurent,
Mr President of the Departmental Council, Christian Favier
Jean-François Carenco, Prefect of the Ile-de-France Region,
Valérie Pécresse, President of the Ile-de-France Regional Council,
The Mayor of Ivry-sur-Seine, Philippe Bouyssou,
Ladies and gentlemen elected,
Dear Alice Gosnat,
Dear Elisabeth Chailloux and Adel Hakim
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
To inaugurate this Carnation Factory today is to prolong and renew what is undoubtedly one of the best political experiences of the last century, that of theatrical decentralization.
I want to tell you how proud I am today, as Minister of Culture, to have the opportunity to accompany this movement. Here, where Patrice Chéreau directed Dans la solitude des champs de coton by Bernard-Marie Koltès, I can see how important it is as well as the symbolic force.
To convoke the history of theatrical decentralization is first to convoke the spirit of a certain number of convinced and committed women and men.
Those who, even before two wars had upset the order of the world, decided to free the theatre from its Parisian tropism and to share it with the greatest number, in the cities as in the countryside.
I am thinking of course of Firmin Gémier or Léon Chancerel at the beginning of the 20th century. I am also thinking of the action of Jacques Copeau, Louis Ducreux, Romain Rolland and Charles Dullin during the interwar period. I still think, from the Liberation, of Jean Vilar, Jean Dasté, Hubert Gignoux, Maurice Sarrazin, André Clavé. I am thinking of a woman, Jeanne Laurent, among all these men.
Citing these great figures of French theatre, I want to pay tribute to Bruno Bayen, who was one of them, and who left us a few days ago.
Major public policies are often based on the personal initiatives of these women and men who are above all activists.
This is also how the political project of the left is inspired and nurtured.
The history of theatrical decentralization cannot be dissociated from the values, an idea of humanity, of society, of a vision of culture that were those of its founding fathers and mothers.
The first of these ideas is that of art, and theatre in particular, which emancipates and blossoms, which allows everyone to rediscover themselves and to surpass themselves. When these men and women led the theatre on the roads of France, it was to liberate bodies and consciences.
Theatre is also, it must be said, at the heart of the democratic experience. A public service, in the words of Jean Vilar.
If theatre is a public service, then it must respond to one of its principles, which is also a foundation of the Republic, that of equality.
Theatrical decentralization is the implementation of equal access to culture and it is to reach out to people in all their social diversity in order to respond to Roger Planchon when he says that “workers only go to theatres to build them”.
The state policy initiated by Jeanne Laurent at the Liberation thus bears the seal of these two great ambitions.
On the one hand, decentralization, that is to say, to ensure that there is no longer «Paris and the French desert» but on the contrary to decentralise the places where the theatre is made.
On the other hand, democratization means opening the doors of these theatres to all the inhabitants of this country.
While the first ambition may seem to have been achieved, thanks to the exceptional network we have built, the second is not and must still guide public action today. These same ambitions are at the origin of the first five national drama centres (CDN), in Colmar, Saint-Etienne, Rennes, Toulouse and Aix-en-Provence. Today, 38 of them irrigate the entire national territory. In 2017, we will celebrate their 70th anniversary.
It was very important to me to be here with you today because I don’t think there is a better place to launch this anniversary than the venue of the last theatre to receive the National Dramatic Centre label.
Today the theatre is made everywhere in France, in its capital with the national theatres and in the Regions with the CDN. It is a beautiful network, of which we must be proud.
A network of CDNs that we intend to consolidate. After Ivry it will be in 2017 the completion of the work of the new Comédie de Saint-Etienne, another emblematic CDN since it will also celebrate next year its 70 years. We will then begin the rehabilitation of the Amandiers in Nanterre. And I cannot fail to mention the launch of the Cité du Théâtre a few weeks ago by the President of the Republic, also in a district inscribed in a working-class past, that of the sets workshops of the Paris National Opera.
Here in Ivry, the achievement of this label, the creation of this new place, are in fact the culmination of a long history whose striking features are confused with those of dramatic decentralization.
I want to talk about the militant commitment of Antoine Vitez when he created a theatre in 1972 in which amateur practice is at the heart of the artistic process. A strong conviction that will be transmitted to Philippe Adrien and Catherine Dasté yesterday, and today to Elisabeth Chailloux and Adel Hakim, whom I greet very warmly.
Here we are renewing popular education. It is not just a question of opening the doors of the theatre, even if this is a necessary prerequisite. It’s about creating debate and involving people in the creative work.
Between those who have and those who do not, those who can and those who cannot, those who have the word and those who do not, the fracture grows day by day. The dramatic decentralization, the theatrical democratization, is exactly where this divide lies. In the society we know, only creation has the power to form a space for dialogue around artists' proposals.
The work you are doing here, dear Elisabeth Chailloux, dear Adel Hakim, is not reducible to distraction or entertainment, it is a work of education, citizenship, gathering, social reconciliation. I want to thank you for that.
We must also bear in mind the first industrial vocation of this place, built at the end of the 19th century. The symbol is beautiful. This place was worker, popular. It must remain so.
In the Carnation Factory, today the theatre of the Ivry districts. The neighbourhood theater, as they say, the neighbourhood bistro or the neighbourhood bookstore. This has a strong meaning, that of the theatre’s anchorage in its direct environment.
I also know that the architect, Paul Ravaux, whom I salute, worked in this direction.
I do not forget that theatre decentralization, here as elsewhere, if it is done by artists, also owes a lot to political leaders. Or rather political leaders convinced of the role of culture. Pierre Gosnat was honoured.
It is also in Aubervilliers the unfailing support of a committed man like Jack Ralite who has always accompanied the history of the Théâtre de la commune, another emblematic CDN.
Faced with this long history, we public officials must ask ourselves a question: how can we prolong this movement and put it in our time?
What would be, 70 years after the pioneers, a new political adventure in favor of artistic creation?
The network of living performance labels has been enshrined in law since July 2016. Law says what we demand and want.
We have also introduced freedom of creation and programming into legislative law, consistent with the CDN model, which also shows the State’s confidence in artists.
Another fundamental step in this adventure is the consolidation of the intermittence regime, allowing artists and show technicians to live from their craft. The historic agreement we reached a few months ago strengthens it and strengthens it.
The adventure of decentralization was made possible by a pact of trust between artists and political leaders. This mutual trust, each in his role, is indispensable to leave all his freedom to creation, all his place to political, artistic and social innovation.
Today, we must revive the alchemy that made things possible. It is necessary to give all the means to boldness, to trust and to guarantee the freedom of creation and of programming, of which we see, here and there, attempts to challenge. And this in an uninhibited speech that must mobilize us.
Tomorrow’s NDCs must continue to strive for diversity and equal access, in the service of a society that we want to be open and inclusive, with respect for others and their differences.
In this sense, a renewal movement was initiated to give more space to women and new generations of artists at the head of the CDN.
Aragon once said, "Perhaps never has it been more urgent and noble for man to blackmail things." This is still true today. In this place which also has the name of a beautiful revolution it is up to you, generations of artists of today and tomorrow, to be faithful to this beautiful mission of public service, in forms and practices that you will reinvent.
Thank you.