Lowbrow culture and French cultural policy: the socio-political logics of a changing and paradoxical relationship.

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]