For the time being, a real cultural policy emanating from elected officials who are mainly environmentalists of the City of Lyon has not yet been presented. Blame it on the pandemic, its heavy economic and social consequences. However, it could start to take shape with a strong decision that leaked this Thursday. The town hall is planing this year the subsidies paid to the Opéra de Lyon, a mastodon of the cultural landscape.
In Grenoble, the ecological mayor Éric Piolle had also caused an uproar in his time, by abolishing his subsidy to the Musicians of the Louvre – baroque music orchestra.
However, it is difficult to compare exactly the two municipalities and their biases in terms of culture, despite the common political label. Rue89Lyon had dedicated a long investigation to the prejudices of the mayor EELV and his deputy in Isère. Relations clash with a good part of the cultural sphere, misunderstood decision-making, lack of confidence and knowledge of the field.
In Lyon, Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, who was mayor of the 1st arrondissement (Lyon label “Gram”, close to LFI), was never inserted at EELV but nevertheless obtained a place of choice in the executive after a gathering of between-two-rounds and the victory in Lyon of the ecologist Grégory Doucet.
“NPG” then managed to communicate or even be greeted by those first concerned, for the rapid establishment of an emergency fund, in the face of the economic and health crisis. An envelope of 4 million euros partly already distributed.
A 7.5 million subsidy cut by 500,000 euros
This Thursday, March 4, Frédéric Martel, journalist at France Culture, announces on Twitter which is still a rumor at the beginning of the afternoon. The City of Lyon intends to reduce its annual subsidy to the Opéra de Lyon by 500,000 euros, aid which reached 7.521 million euros in 2020.
In the Progress, the Culture Assistant confirms:
“Despite this drop of 500,000 euros – which represents less than 3% of the City’s aid, the Opera has great leeway to do great things. I trust him. “
Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, Deputy Mayor of Lyon in charge of Culture.
The deputy speaks of a cut of 3% because it increases the aid that the City brings to the Opera to 18 million euros (with municipal staff to the tune of 10 million euros and an additional subsidy of ‘equipment).
The equipment is thus the heaviest in terms of subsidies in Lyon, with a total operating budget of 38 million euros (also assumed by the State, the Region, the Metropolis of Lyon).
It is also an emblematic monument, a building renovated by the architect Jean Nouvel, which faces the Town Hall where all these new elected officials live.
” data-medium-file=”https://www.rue89lyon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NPG-haddouche-76-180×120.jpg” data-large-file=”https://www.rue89lyon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NPG-haddouche-76-630×420.jpg” loading=”lazy” class=”size-full wp-image-144224″ alt=”Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert lors du débat culture le mardi 18 février 2020. ©Houcine Haddouche” width=”1000″ height=”667″ srcset=”https://www.rue89lyon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NPG-haddouche-76.jpg 1000w, https://www.rue89lyon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NPG-haddouche-76-180×120.jpg 180w, https://www.rue89lyon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NPG-haddouche-76-768×512.jpg 768w, https://www.rue89lyon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NPG-haddouche-76-630×420.jpg 630w” sizes=”(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px”/>
Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert during the debate dedicated to culture, Tuesday February 18, 2020 © HoucineHaddouche / Rue89Lyon
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The first political fight over what Lyon should be
The indignation and the opposition of looks that this decision arouses is interesting.
For the right-wing and center-right elected officials, this is an ideal opportunity (and expected, because this drop in aid to the Opera had been suggested during the election campaign) to accuse the majority of wanting to destroy a symbol from the city.
Their leader, Étienne Blanc, also first vice-president of Laurent Wauquiez in the Region, was the first to suffocate.
“For the past 6 months, the green / far-left majority, faithful to its obsession with degrowth, have destroyed all the symbols of Lyon’s influence. By removing 500,000 euros from the budget of the Opera, pillar of Lyon’s cultural institutions, it is a first step towards the ideology of the Greens and the far left in cultural matters and a contribution to the weakening of Lyon. “
The elected representatives of the Right, Center & Independents group at the City of Lyon.
An “anti-opera ideology”
A battle of aesthetics would thus be played out, to which irreconcilable political orientations would be attributed.
To make it short and rude, to the rich and elderly Lyonnais the Opera, its high-end shows and heavy curtains; noisy concert halls and small dilapidated theaters for young and long-haired Lyonnais.
This is obviously not the reality, nor does it tell all the cultural proposals of the City and the fact that some eventually go to others. In particular through (socio-) cultural actions with an educational vocation. What moreover very often claims Serge Dorny, director of the Opera of Lyon. He likes to repeat that his audience is much more varied than it seems.
However, the same Serge Dorny, reacting to the municipal decision, also opted for a political reading of this planing of 500,000 euros. He sees it as an important ideological marker:
“The cultural assistant justifies this reduction in favor of” supporting creation and emergence “, while by withdrawing 500,000 euros from the Opéra de Lyon, she is eliminating a part of creation and emergence in the lyrical, the choreographic and the transversal musics of our institution. In terms of cultural policy, we can only worry about the anti-opera ideology that this decision seems to underlie ”.
Serge Dorny, director of the Opéra de Lyon, at Le Progrès, March 4, 2021.
Rebalancing “a fossilized cultural policy”
In fact, it would be less a question of destroying the work and classical programming of the Opera than of rebalancing non-extensible financial support. In Lyon, the budget dedicated to culture has been historically high, since Gérard Collomb. With 120 million euros, it is the second budget just after that of education and early childhood (which weighs 355 million euros in 2021).
Grégory Doucet, then EELV candidate for mayor, had promised to sanctify him despite the “Covid crisis”, during the debate that Rue89Lyon had co-organized with the Petit Bulletin ahead of the first round of the elections. But although maintained at a high level, this cultural budget remains tight and does not allow new situations to be deployed in the city.
More generally, one of the main reasons mentioned by public authorities, communities and the State to explain the non-financing of new structures and new projects is the impossibility of increasing budgets in a period of generalized restrictions.
This resulted in a “patrimonial” management of culture, to use the words of Vincent Cavaroc, to whom we had opened a platform. The director of the Halle Tropisme (in Montpellier) calls for “a more equitable redistribution of public money in culture”.
The cultural policy with a constant and constrained budget almost prohibits reshuffling the cards or even integrating new players or even innovation in a territory.
“I rebalanced a fossilized cultural policy. Behind the scenes, we could hear the previous cultural assistants explaining that institutions like the Opera were eating up the whole budget and that there was nothing he could do. Me, I make arbitrations and I assume them. “
Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, Deputy Mayor of Lyon in charge of Culture.
A choice that she will have to defend during the municipal council of next March 25, in the face of opposition elected officials particularly raised on the file. The controversy is good that it could force the new elected officials of the City to bring to light a cultural policy for Lyon, for the next few years – while waiting for the places to reopen.
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