Ministry of Culture (France)

Minister of Culture
Ministre de la Culture
Incumbent Rachida Dati since 11 January 2024
Member of	Council of Ministers
Reports to	President of the Republic and to Parliament
Residence	Palais-Royal
Seat	Paris, France
Appointer	President of the Republic
Term length	No fixed term Remains in office while commanding the confidence of the National Assembly and the President of the Republic
Constituting instrument	Constitution of 4 October 1958
Formation	8 January 1959
First holder	André Malraux
Salary	€9,940 per month
Website	www.culture.gouv.fr/en/

The Ministry of Culture (French: Ministère de la Culture) is the ministry of the Government of France in charge of national museums and the monuments historiques. Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and protection of the arts (visual, plastic, theatrical, musical, dance, architectural, literary, televisual and cinematographic) on national soil and abroad. Its budget is mainly dedicated to the management of the Archives Nationales (six national sites and hundred decentralised storage facilities) and the regional Maisons de la culture (culture centres).

Its main office is in the Palais-Royal in the 1st arrondissement of Paris on the Rue de Valois.^[1][2] It is headed by the Minister of Culture, a cabinet member. The current officeholder has been Rachida Dati since 11 January 2024.

History

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Deriving from the

The modern post of Minister of Culture was created by Charles de Gaulle in 1959 and the first officeholder was the writer André Malraux. Malraux was responsible for realising the goals of the droit à la culture ('right to culture'), an idea which had been incorporated in the Constitution of France and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), by democratising 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

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 (35% of songs on French radio stations must be in French), ostensibly in reaction to the presence of English.

Ministers of Culture

The following people were appointed Minister of Culture of France:

Names of the Ministry of Culture

Since the French constitution does not identify specific ministers (merely speaking of "the minister in charge of" this or that), each government may label each ministry as they wish, or even have a broader ministry in charge of several governmental sectors. Hence, the ministry has gone through a number of different names:

Organisation

Central administration

The Ministry of Culture is made up of a variety of internal divisions, including:

• Direction de l'administration générale (DAG)
• Direction de l'architecture et du patrimoine (DAPA) in charge of national monuments and heritage
  • General inventory of cultural heritage maintains extensive databases of historical sites and objects via the Base Mérimée and monument historique status.
• 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
• Direction de la musique, de la danse, du théâtre et des spectacles (DMDTS) in charge of
  music, dance and theater
• Direction des Musées de France (DMF) in charge of national museums

The Ministry has access to one inter-ministerial 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
  )

• 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
• Délégation générale à la langue française et aux langues de France (DGLFLF) in charge of the French language and languages of France

Finally, the Ministry shares in the management of the National Centre of

The Alliance française is run by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.^[4]

Other services

On the national level, the Ministry also runs:

• Regional Cultural Affairs (Direction régionale des affaires culturelles, DRAC)
• Departmental Architecture and Monuments (Services départementaux de l'architecture et du patrimoine, SDAP)
• departmental councils
• Centre National de la Danse, institution for the study and preservation of dance^[5]

Cultural activities

The Ministry of Culture is responsible for, or a major sponsor of, a number of annual cultural activities, including the Fête de la Musique, the Maison de la culture de Grenoble, the Festival d'Avignon, the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles, the Joconde (online database of objects in French museums), the Base Mérimée (database of listed heritage monuments), and the Maître d'art program.

Further reading

• Nancy Marmer, "The New Culture: France '82", Art in America, December 1982, pp. 115–123, 181-189.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ministère de la Culture (France).

• Official website (in French)
• Culture Portal of the Ministry of Culture (Page index in English, documents in French)
• Culture Portal of the Ministry of Culture (in French)
  • English pages (Archive)