Minister, dear Jean-Michel,
Madam Minister, dear Martine PINVILLE,
Ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly,
President of the Departmental Council,
Mr President of Grand Angoulême,
Mr Mayor,
Mr Prefect,
Ladies and gentlemen rectors,
Mr President of the City,
Mr Director General of these National Comic Strip Meetings,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
To talk about what we have to do together, I would like to start by telling you what we have in common.
I think we have come together by a trait of character, that we have refused to believe, at one time or another, those who told us that it was impossible. That things were “supposed” to be different.
“Impossible” to transform Angoulême, an ancient industrial city, into a cultural capital…
“It’s impossible” to play with generational, or social barriers to get comics into homes… “It is impossible” to imagine an art captured with as much enthusiasm by the hands of the students as by that of their teacher.
And yet… You have all participated in these revolutions in your roles – authors, publishers, cultural actors, teachers. You continue. Today, with Jean-Michel BLANQUER, we are also, in a way, in this wake. We are also among those who hear that “it is not possible”.
«Impossible», for my colleague Jean-Michel BLANQUER, to rebuild the school around trust. It is impossible for me to give new impetus to cultural policy. It is impossible for us, together, to give substance to the promise of reconciliation between our two projects: to advance culture and education together.
“Others have already tried,” we are told.
We’re here to tell you that we will. Thanks to a weapon that has made it possible to overcome many obstacles, in history, which will continue, and which bears a name: this weapon is the political will.
It is not here, in Angoulême, that we will teach you the power. The first comic strip festival was born out of a political will, originally that of Francis GROUX. This desire has crossed the path of enthusiasts, artists, entrepreneurs… It has combined other wills. And little by little, they transformed a territory, and ultimately, our country.
Today, with Jean-Michel BLANQUER, we share one, for arts and cultural education. I want to talk a little bit about the political will we have and how we count. This political will is based on the sharing of conviction and ambition.
The conviction is that our two projects are inseparable. Culture is at the heart of the school of trust that Jean-Michel BLANQUER wants to build. It is culture that gives meaning to life in society, and it helps everyone to find their way there.
“Education comes before education, it founds man,” said SAINT-EXUPERY. Culture should no longer be considered as a supplement of soul, it is at the heart of this education. Conversely, school is at the heart of my own project. Because it is the best place to fight the feeling of illegitimacy, which remains the first barrier of access to culture. It reaches all future citizens. And at an early age, when the relationship to arts and cultures is forged.
From this shared conviction, we have, with Jean-Michel BLANQUER, created an ambition… A triple ambition.
First, an ambition of universality. The situations today are contrasted, on the ground, in arts and cultural education. Our goal is to make it a reality for all children in the Republic, by 2022.
We also have a long-term ambition. To give culture a structuring place in the development of children, we want to make it both a common thread in school, from kindergarten to high school, and register each activity in the long time. Temporary outings and meetings are essential first steps, but they are not enough. To have a structuring impact, we must establish recurring meetings with the works, artists, and allow children to have a regular practice themselves. Only then can each family say, “Yes, things have changed.”
And it is in this same concern of duration that I wear the «Culture Pass» for 18-year-olds: so that they have the means, at the entrance to adulthood, to extend the path they started in school. Finally, we have an ambition of diversity.
For artistic and cultural transmission to play its full role in our society, it must open up to the arts and cultures in their diversity. The Ministry of Culture has a responsibility to protect and feed it. Our role is also to move forward with National Education to share it. That’s ambition.
I wanted to say a word about that, because there’s never political will. The one we hold for arts and cultural education exists, and we post it: it’s a first step. Now we have to turn it into action. We have to make it an “embodiment”. In four months, we’ve started. In our new way of working, first.
We went back to school together in music in September, in Hauts-de-France. We are here together today. We will be in Blois tomorrow, together, for the Rendez-vous de l'Histoire. And so we will multiply joint trips. A collaboration has been established between our departments, which is unprecedented. It is visible at our level, but it unites our teams, our administrations, at every moment. Our will is also embodied in new ways.
I presented my 2018 budget last week.
The Ministry of Culture will significantly strengthen its support for arts and cultural education actions: the budget will increase next year by 35 million euros. It will be increased to €114 million.
Our political will is now also embodied in priorities. With Jean-Michel BLANQUER, we decided to set two goals: the development of artistic practice on the one hand, from music to theatre and drawing, and the taste for reading on the other. It is unprecedented: the specifications had remained vague until then, on the path of arts and cultural education.
And it is decisive: specifying priorities thus helps guide the efforts deployed, and thus to gain in impact. Comics are obviously at the heart of this project, because they combine our two priorities, it is an extraordinary field of practice for children themselves, through drawing, painting.
It is a very good medium for developing a taste for reading. It is the second most borrowed genre in libraries. It is also an art that opens to other cultural fields, and to multiple knowledge.
I’m thinking of the success of historical comics, or comics with an educational purpose – that’s the theme of your discussions tomorrow. They help young people to appropriate subjects that they would not have approached in the «classical» way: this is also the role of arts and cultural education.
Comics therefore have an obvious place in the project we want to carry out. The mission of the coming months is to see this political will embodied in facts. And we will need all the energy.
To generalize practices and reading, we will build on local partnerships. We do not intend to establish a model scheme at national level. Firstly, because solutions have to be built at the territorial level: actors must be able to organize themselves freely, according to local resources – a library, a workshop, an artist residence for example.
We trust you. It’s not uniformity that leads to universality. It’s pragmatism and the ability to innovate. Then, because on the ground, you didn’t wait for us to “do”.
There are hundreds, thousands of you in France who have been mobilizing for years. To play this role of “smugglers” with the younger generations. We will have much to learn from what is done here, in the City, and more broadly on the territory.
You have forged exemplary partnerships around comics. I’m thinking of projects like “Rurart”, or the rural “Epiphyte” school. Calls for projects such as «Kustom», which brings together educational, social and cultural institutions of several communes. Or projects like «Eclaircies», which install author residencies in schools: this is an area I want to explore.
Thanks to you, thousands of young people benefit from a route around comics in this Region. I am also thinking of partnerships in other artistic fields: theatre, contemporary art…
You do a lot. And you do a lot “together”. You can be proud.
The example you offer us must be multiplied. And the Ministry of Culture will advance in this direction, with a dual mission.
First of all, we have a role to play in mobilizing and empowering all cultural actors at the national level. Everyone has to do their part. All agreements signed by the Ministry of Culture will now include a section dedicated to arts and cultural education. That is to say, all the artists and all the structures we support will have to carry out specific actions for young or «distant» audiences of culture.
We will also strengthen the commitment of our own institutions in this regard. You are doing exemplary work here at the Cité, which must inspire others. These are structuring decisions, which I announced last week.
The Ministry of Culture will also play a role in training.
On the one hand, the formation of future creators. Because arts and cultural education also serves to trigger vocations. The Ecole Européenne Supérieure de l'Image (EESI) in Angoulême is doing a tremendous job, which I want to commend. The talents emerging here are recognized and envied around the world.
On the other hand, we have a role to play in training cultural “smugglers”.
We are going to work within our own higher education structures to train future cultural actors more in transmission and awareness-raising missions.
Conversely, we are ready to make our resources available to support the training of future teachers at the EAC. Partnerships are to be developed, on the model of what is done here: between the City and the National Education.
So, ladies and gentlemen,
A few words about the project we are currently deploying.
It is a priority for my department.
I have made school one of the three new frontiers to overcome for cultural policy, with Europe, and for local cultural life.
Arts and cultural education must continue throughout life. And we will work on that, of course. But we made this choice: to give priority to youth.
A choice that the moment dictates, in my opinion. We have a responsibility to give young people all the strength they need to meet the challenges that my generation, our generation, leaves behind: in the social, security, economic and ecological fields.
Culture will be part of the answer, along with education.
Thank you.