Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, Culture Assistant in Lyon © Antoine Merlet
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In response to the drop in subsidies from the Region to a large number of cultural structures in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the cultural assistant of the city of Lyon, Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, asked the prefect to study the legality of these decisions. In Lyon, nearly 25 structures are impacted by these cuts made this Wednesday, May 25.
This Wednesday morning, during its permanent committee, the Auvergne-Alpes Region has recorded the reduction of regional subsidies for many cultural structures, for an amount of around 2 million euros in Lyon and nearly 4 million euros in total at regional level. A decision strongly criticized in recent weeks by the structures concerned, informed drop by drop by the Region itself, sometimes, and in the press.
Read also: Nuits sonores, Woodstower, Maison de la Danse… the reduction in subsidies from the Region is getting longer in Lyon
In Lyon, the elected officials of the Metropolis and the City did not hide their aversion for these cuts made by the executive chaired by Laurent Wauquiez. Starting with the cultural assistant of the city of Lyon, Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, who seized the file head-on. It was even during the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, she confides, that she finished writing to the prefect to ask him to study the legality of the cuts made by the President of the Region.
Today I am starting an action with the Prefect of the Region to examine the legality of the reductions in the Region’s subsidy to the cultural sector voted in standing committee without prior vote of a framework deliberation in public session.#helloLWauquiez@Lyonencommun
— Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert (@NPG_Lyon) May 24, 2022
“Attached to the principle of free administration of communities, I am also attentive to respect for the democratic and republican framework”, writes the assistant before listing her grievances. According to her, the decisions taken by the regional executive do not respect the last framework deliberation of June 2017, which defines “the orientations of the new regional policy in favor of the artistic creation of culture and heritage”. This stipulates that the Region must “particularly support and promote actions of regional interest, making it possible to contribute to the dissemination towards a large public, on the regional territory, of creations and of the cultural offer”. There are listed the national dramatic centers, the National Opera, the professional orchestras, the national choreographic centers or even the national stages.
Three possibilities for the prefecture
So many structures that today bear the brunt of the Region’s cuts, like the Opéra de Lyon (- €500,000), the Maison de la Danse (- €180,000) and the TNP in Villeurbanne to recite nobody else but them.
For their part, the services of the Rhône prefecture confirmed to us that they had received the request from the cultural assistant. This will be studied upon receipt of the deliberation of the Region adopted in the permanent committee this Wednesday, May 25. Three options will then be offered to the legal services of the prefect, either they judge these legal reductions and the procedure stops there, or they note an irregularity and then they can ask the Region to modify its decision and if this is not not conceivable a referral to justice is possible.
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