The
Minister of Culture is, in the
Government of France, the
cabinet member in charge of national museums and monuments; promoting and protecting the arts (visual, plastic, theatrical, musical, dance, architectural, literary, televisual and cinematographic) in France and abroad; and managing the national archives and regional "maisons de culture" (culture centres). The Ministry of Culture is also charged with maintaining the French identity. It is located on the
Palais Royal in
Paris.
History
Deriving from the
Italian and
Burgundian courts of the
Renaissance, the notion that the state had a key role to play in the sponsoring of artistic production and that the arts were linked to national prestige was found in France from at least the 16th century on. During the pre-revolutionary period, these ideas are apparent in such things as the creation of the
Académie française, the
Académie de peinture et de sculpture and other state-sponsored institutions of artistic production, and through the cultural policies of
Louis XIV's minister
Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
The modern post of Minister of Culture was created by
Charles de Gaulle in 1959 and the first Minister was the writer
André Malraux. Malraux was responsible for realizing the goals of the "droit à la culture" ("the right to culture") -- an idea which had been incorporated in the
French constitution and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) -- by
democratizing access to culture, while also achieving the
Gaullist aim of elevating the "grandeur" ("greatness") of post-war France. To this end, he created numerous regional cultural centres throughout France and actively sponsored the arts. Malraux's artistic tastes included the modern arts and the avant-garde, but on the whole he remained conservative.
Under president
François Mitterrand the Minister of Culture was
Jack Lang who showed himself to be far more open to popular cultural production, including
jazz,
rock and roll,
rap music,
graffiti art ("
tagging"),
cartoons,
comic books, fashion and food. His famous phrase "économie et culture, même combat" ("economy and culture: it's the same fight") is representative of his commitment to
cultural democracy and to active national sponsorship and participation in cultural production. In addition to the creation of the
Fête de la Musique and overseeing the French bicentennial (1989), he was in charge of the massive architectural program of the Mitterrand years (the so-called "Grands Travaux" or "Great Works" like the
Bibliothèque nationale, the new
Louvre, the Institut du Monde Arabe, the
Musée d'Orsay, the
Opéra-Bastille, the "
Grande Arche" of
La Défense (the Parisian business quarter) and the City of Science and Music in
La Villette).
The Ministry of
Jacques Toubon was notable for a number of laws (the "
Toubon Laws") enacted for the preservation of the
French language, both in advertisements (all ads must include a French translation of foreign words) and on the radio (40% of songs on French radio stations must be in French), ostensibly in reaction to the presence of English.
The current minister is
Frédéric Mitterrand, who faced calls to resign in October 2009 over alleged accounts of child-sex tourism in his book The Bad Life. Mitterrand defends filmmaker
Roman Polanski's sexual relations with a thirteen year old girl calling his arrest, "Horrifying".
Ministers of Culture
For a complete list see .
Names of the Ministry of Culture
The ministry has gone through a number of different names:
- 1959 Ministère des affaires culturelles
- 1974 Ministère des Affaires culturelles et de l’Environnement
- 1974 Secrétariat d’État à la culture
- 1976 Ministère de la Culture et de l’Environnement
- 1978 Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
- 1981 Ministère de la Culture
- 1986 Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
- 1988 Ministère de la Culture, de la Communication, des Grands travaux et du Bicentenaire
- 1991 Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
- 1992 Ministère de l’Education nationale et de la Culture
- 1993 Ministère de la Culture et de la Francophonie
- 1995 Ministère de la Culture
- 1997 Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
Organisation
Central Administration
The Ministry of Culture is made up of a variety of internal divisions, including:
- Direction de l'administration générale (DAG)
- Direction des archives de France (DAF) - in charge of the National Archives
- Direction du livre et de la lecture (DLL) - in charge of French literature and the book trade
The Ministry also has access to the division :
- Direction du développement des médias (DDM) in charge of developing and expanding the French media (although French public television is run through the public-service company France Télévisions).
The Ministry also runs three "delegations" (administrative boards) :
- Délégation aux arts plastiques (DAP) - in charge of the visual and sculptural arts.
- Délégation au développement et aux affaires internationales (DDAI) - in charge of international affairs and French art
Finally, the Ministry shares in the management of the National Centre of
Cinema (Centre national de la cinématographie), a public institution (go to their link ).
The
Alliance française is run by the
Minister of Foreign Affairs (France).
For more on the organization of the Ministry, see .
Other Services
On the national level, the Ministry also runs:
- Regional Cultural Affairs (Direction régionale des affaires culturelles - DRAC)
- Départemental Architecture and Monuments (Services départementaux de l'architecture et du patrimoine - SDAP)
Cultural Activities
The Ministry of Culture is responsible for, or a major sponsor of, a number of annual cultural activities, including:
- Joconde, a huge online database of objects in French museums.
