19/11/2012 - The minister gave a long opening speech about the next challenges in European cultural policy, to the theme of hope

"You are at home here." The president of the Avignon Forum Association, Nicolas Seydoux, thus welcomed French minister of culture Aurélie Filippetti (photo) to the fifth edition of the Avignon Forum, this year titled Culture: Reasons to Hope. From November 15 to 17, the forum deliberated on the links between culture and the economy, suggesting thoughts for reflection at international, European, and local levels.

The minister gave a long opening speech that notably highlighted the European Commission and its policy as being guilty, according to Filippetti, of threatening "cultural exception in the French way", while banning "principles that have been proven to work" instead of broadening this exception to the whole of Europe. The minister denounced a form of intolerance that consists in seeing culture as "a non-commercial sector that only lives off subsidies."

In the context of the crisis now preoccupying so many, the Avignon Forum however held regular notes of optimism, reflected in this same speech: "There are reasons to hope for the whole of Europe." This, on the condition that all countries avoid reverting to the nationalism that the financial crisis tends to encourage.

Filippetti then spoke of cultural policies that France should set up to address the need for funds currently eating away at small and medium-sized businesses. Reminding the audience that 80% of French small and medium-sized businesses today work in culture, the minister suggested a sponsorship or even public-private partnership system, but one that should however not become "a stopgap for a failing state," she warned. Finally, she said that she was ready to take on the challenges of digitisation.

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(Translated from French)