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Copyright of Modern & Contemporary France is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When it comes to public policies that recognize and accommodate ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, cities are active and innovative. However, policy adoption can differ greatly from case to case, with different policy processes leading to different types of instruments across local contexts. This paper focuses on two cases from France, a country usually associated with hostility towards recognizing group-based diversity. In Marseille, there has been a decades-long consensus around group-based multiculturalism. The impetus has come from mayors ("policy entrepreneurs") of both the centre-left and the centre-right. In Grenoble, the uninterrupted dominance of a strong left-wing administration has infused diversity policy with more traditional themes, such as anti-discrimination, universalist participation and civil-society support in the city's stigmatized southern neighbourhoods. The study demonstrates that local-level diversity policy may feature a mix of multicultural, intercultural and universalist elements, and that tracing local policy processes can explain puzzling policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to explore French cultural policy to show how the white boundary making is embedded in the 'routine structures' of cultural life. It takes the example of the implementation of national cultural policy as a means of seeing how the privilege of the majority operates. Against a formal insistence that the French definition of citizenship and equality does not leave room for the discussion of visible identities, it argues that immigration issues in relation to culture are relevant loci for the numerous instances of boundary drawings that it helps highlighting. Specifically, it shows how in the process of designing and implementing cultural policies, administrative officials have defined culture as artistic, universal and secular throughout the years. As a consequence of which, the privileged currently take part in the definition of artistic norms, while migration-related minorities have to justify for the social benefit of any of their artistic initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deconstructs the golden legend of cultural democratisation as the achievement of the French Republican model. To do so it goes back to the years 1895–1905 when the debates on cultural democratisation were first structured. It shows how the intellectuals who ‘went to the people’ to give them culture and/or to promote a ‘people's culture’ found in this proselytism a way to express their vision of the ways to transform the social order, and to define a form of democracy in which intellectuals could play a prominent role. By doing so, they tried to oppose an alternative to the traditional methods of political representation that is to say they tried to compete with State officials as legitimate political representatives. Beyond this short-time historical period, this paper sheds light on the articulation between cultural democratisation, cultural policy and democracy in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a distinction between 'explicit' or 'nominal' cultural policies (policies that are explicitly labelled as 'cultural') and 'implicit' or 'effective' cultural policies (policies that are not labelled manifestly as 'cultural', but that work to prescribe or shape cultural attitudes and habits over given territories). It begins by defining the distinction through reference to a suggestive inconsistency located within the work of the French thinker Regis Debray. It then specifies the distinction further in relation to certain anglophone references in cultural policy studies and wider political thinking (Geoff Mulgan and Ken Worpole, Raymond Williams, Joseph Nye). Finally, it explores the history of laicity in France conceived initially in terms of a conflict between the implicit cultural policies of the Catholic Church and the republican State, as well as certain tensions implied by the realpolitik of laicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Devlin and Hoyle report, Committing to culture: arts funding in France and Britain, argues that the cultural policies of these two European neighbours have been steadily converging since the mid-1990s but that their social and economic contexts are now quite different (e.g. youth unemployment, GDP, disposable income). The paper addresses this convergence-within-divergence by comparing how policy discourses have conceptualised popular culture in the two countries. It investigates the hypothesis that, in both, an engagement with popular culture has in fact been an important driver of change, albeit at different times and with different taxonomies. And it asks what light this comparison might shed on cultural policy thinking in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The polysemy of the phrase cultures populaires reflects the struggles to define the relationship between culture and the people in France. This paper brings out the variety of the social and political uses of this phrase and recalls the issues it raises. It also explains the ambiguities of cultural policy programmes concerning 'low' culture, most of these programmes remaining oriented towards a culturally legitimist approach even when they try to promote alternative forms of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show how in France, the synthesis of cultural policy and social concerns throws up a number of tensions and pitfalls. These tensions are perhaps most acute because these sorts of cultural policies are not merely about socio-economic issues but are actually tied to France's colonial legacy and the presence of a large and often marginalised population of migrants and their descendents. The pitfalls stem from the universalist starting point of French cultural policy, which, although designed to integrate "new" and migrant/postmigrant publics, emergent artists and cultural practices, seems to simultaneously marginalise them since it is already premised on a binary that opposes art as aesthetic expression and art as an expression of cultural (anthropological) identity or social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the thirty-year history of the Dinard Film Festival (until 2018, the Dinard Festival of British Film), with a particular focus on the financial support provided by bodies with industrial and/or cultural remits: specifically, the UK Film Council, the British Council and the British Film Institute. As I discuss, Dinard is a significant case study for understanding the British film-industrial relationship with France, but also for analysing the interrelationship between economic and cultural policy-making in the British film industry. As I also argue, looking at the history of the Dinard festival offers a significant example of the ways such showcases for 'national cinema' are bound up with the shifting contexts of film-industry policymaking. As I conclude, the changing economic fortunes in British film, and the economic contexts informing UK film policy, have not only impacted on Dinard, but also given the festival a renewed outlook – as well as a more political one in the recent contexts of the UK's EU referendum and 'Brexit'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will consider the protests against Brett Bailey's 2014 performance installation Exhibit B at the Théâtre Gérard Philippe (TGP) in the Paris suburb of St Denis and at the Espace Centquatre within Paris itself. Rather than focusing on the ethical and political questions raised by the piece, I will analyse how in the first instance the deployment of police highlighted the specific importance given to the theatre within French state cultural policy. Following this, I will analyse how this incident exemplified a distinct manifestation of an imperial 'afterlife' of the French state. Building on Kristin Ross' work as well as Laura-Ann Stoler's elaborations on French colonial aphasia (active forgetting), I aim to tease out how the heavy-handed deployment of the police at the specific location of the TGP and the softer strategy deploying an 'exclusion zone' around the Espace Centquatre exemplified the persistent continuation of France's imperial policies as they are applied to racialised populations within its own 'metropolitan' territory. This will lead me to question some of the spatial and temporal assumptions underpinning some of the causal narratives regarding contemporary racism in France, grounded in assumptions that the brutal facts of colonialism happened on far away continents, or to use Anne McClintock's formulation, 'over there'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through her experiences as a queer feminist artist and cultural worker, V. Jourdain shares some of her artistic and curatorial practices in Quebec and France. Comparing the two cultures' consideration of LGBTQI+ minorities, she illuminates a few strategies for changing practices in art and artistic labour in two French-speaking communities. In this article, V. Jourdain shares her experience in research, creation, and passing down memory by opening up a dialogue between feminist frameworks, contemporary art and LGBTQI+ archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries are a core element of local cultural policies. In a country historically marked by national integration policies aiming at cultural homogeneity, what is the relationship of local public libraries to the socio-cultural diversity of populations? The results of qualitative studies conducted in three major cities (Bordeaux, Rennes and Nantes) display a growing awareness of more diverse users and adaptations to their demands. Librarians, at the same time, do not give up the universalist ideals central to the history of their institutions and their current activities. Despite differences between cities, the case of public libraries illustrates the possibility to combine universalism and diversity in the policies implemented in France, here in the cultural field. My study demonstrates how local institutions can use their room for manoevre and combine elements of the republican ideal and adjustments to a diverse social reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very few studies have examined the influence of the acculturation strategies of an offender of foreign descent on the way a third party judges the personality and action of that offender. The aim of our study was thus to measure the effect of three variables (Seriousness of the harm suffered by the victim; Type of acculturation strategy of the offender; Level of Social Dominance Orientation [SDO]) of the person making the judgement) on the judgements and decisions made by a sample of students faced with a situation of physical aggression committed by a man of North African descent living in France. After reading a scenario describing a criminal act committed by a man of North African descent, who had or had not adopted French culture, 168 French students completed a judgement scale concerning the criminal act and the offender and an SDO scale. The results show that the crime was perceived as less serious when the perpetrator had adopted French culture than when he had not. The perpetrator was also judged less severely. Participants with higher levels of SDO advocated harsher punishment and attributed the crime to the offender's personality. We discuss these results and identify new avenues for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Heritage & Society is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In some European countries, performance contracts have become an instrument for the governance and control of major cultural organisations by the public administration. The negotiation and signing of a performance contract are mainly aimed at developing the goals of cultural policies by means of large organisations in order to achieve the traditional objectives of cultural democratisation and other instrumental objectives (economic development, urban regeneration or social inclusion). Nevertheless, the development level of performance contracts varies when we compare England, France and Catalonia (Spain). Each particular level of development is conditioned by the overall administrative and institutional context and the development level of results-based management and an accountability culture. The level of public funding and the degree of autonomy of management within each organisation can also explain why in some cases governance has been contractualised whereas in other cases either progress is more rhetorical than real. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of minorities in France, particularly those with roots in North Africa, has been of national concern since the 1980s and remains so today. Official and public discussions about minorities, and social relations with them, are saturated with mutual distrust and misunderstandings. Despite structural and social impediments, these minorities are encouraged to integrate into the national mainstream and to avoid communitarian and community-building practices that might be interpreted as a rejection of the nation. Minority cultural associations are among the focal points of these negotiations, being places where communities can both strengthen internal bonds and create zones of intercultural contact, mutual education, and debate. In the following I analyse the activities undertaken by North African and Pied-Noir cultural associations in France as examples of boundary maintenance (Barth, F., 1969. Introduction. In: F. Barth, ed. Ethnic groups and boundaries: the social organization of culture difference. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, 9–38). I argue that community building activities within associations are a necessary component in their ability to organise outreach activities designed to create dialogue and improve inter-communal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores how questions of religion have impinged on or informed various dimensions of culture-shaping policy in France. Firstly, it considers not only how religious references have been orchestrated in high-level attempts to frame secular national identities, but also how such processes have assumed quasi-religious forms and functions. Secondly, it analyses the changing place of religion in French educational curricula and recent contested endeavours to introduce it as a cultural 'fact' into those curricula. Thirdly, the article examines influential framings of art policies in their relation to religion. It considers the pivotal function of religious fragments and debris in Malraux's vision of the imaginary museum and the use by Bourdieu of sustained religious metaphors to describe the sacralizing dynamics of secular art world. Finally, the article examines, in a long-term perspective, the implicit and explicit cultural policies of religious bodies themselves in their attempts to act upon prevailing cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Modern & Contemporary France is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the developments in the cultural policy of France. The trends in the museum sector are largely fostered by the cultural policy of both national and local authorities as well as the major shift in the remit of museums and training developments. Since 1980's, France have seen a lot of building and extension work among museums. The diversity of museums have also became noticeable, some are managed by municipalities and others by universities or nonprofit organizations.

The notion of the public intellectual in France represents a form of extra‐governmental cultural politics in its own right. This article begins, however, by exploring three sets of reasons that can account for the aversion of French intellectuals under the Fifth Republic to involvement in State cultural policy processes. These are: the historical counter‐examples represented by intellectuals’ involvement in the policy apparatuses of the Vichy regime and the French Communist Party; the positive tradition of laicity, or of a realm of free inquiry politically set off from the political field; and the often detrimental effects on academic prestige of involvement in policy processes. It then traces the incentives and institutional channels through which some public intellectuals have nonetheless been brought into the processes of cultural and educational policy development over recent decades. It concludes by suggesting how intellectuals may be conceived not simply as architects or critics, but also as objects of cultural policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that developing a social exclusion agenda has, in various guises and terminologies ('democratization', 'cultural democracy', 'cultural development'), been the driver of French cultural policy thinking and debate since the creation of a Ministry of Culture in 1959. Addressing exclusion has in fact been a perennial problem for the French ministry, because of a founding and apparently irrepressible conviction, from Malraux in the 1960s to Lang in the 1980s and 1990s, that art speaks for itself without mediation; and because of the consequent structural separation of (to use the standard French terminology) the 'cultural' from the 'social'. This conviction was contested in the late 1960s--partly with the help of Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital, although since then policy agents have mostly attempted to move on from Malraux's position by taking up positions against Bourdieu. The article traces the history of these attempts, then examines in more detail the principles, problems and paradoxes of the exclusion agenda in French cultural policy today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares cultural policy in France and Germany. Development of cultural policy in France; Characteristics of cultural policy in the Federal Republic of Germany; Contrast between France and Germany in terms of a comparative framework based on degrees of centralization and decentralization.

The article examines the French experience of socialist cultural policy since 1981. Unlike Great Britain, France has always taken culture seriously. After at least four centuries of state patronage, arts and education in modern day France are tightly linked with the country's sense of itself as a unified, republican nation-state and with its partly self-created prestige as the cultural fortress of the Western world. Since the 1980s, pop, an American-style mass entertainment par excellence, has increasingly been constructed at government level as a way of resolving the binary oppositions which have affected French policy-making.

The article considers the role of Jean Vilar and his Avignon Encounters in the birth of cultural policies in France from 1964 to 1970. The Avignon Encounters gave artists, professionals, elected representatives, administrators and researchers the opportunity to identify the basic issues behind a constructed policy. In line with the thinking done by the Théâtre National Populaire (TNP), Vilar was aware of the social purposes of cultural development. The themes selected for the Avignon Encounters bear witness to several issues facing those involved in culture development. The Encounters acted as a vital step in the design and construction of the surveys on the cultural policies of local bodies.