Late. Emmanuel Macron tried today to deny that Culture has been the great neglect of the French government in compensating for the economic damage caused by the coronavirus. The president outlined the first aid after meeting by videoconference with a dozen representatives of the sector in which 1.3 million people live. Better late than never?

Macron has visited schools, scientific research centers, hospitals, nursing homes and has met with businessmen, unions, spiritual and religious leaders, restaurateurs and businessmen of leisure venues. Culture seemed not to be on the agenda . Something surprising in a country like France that boasts of the place that creation occupies in its priorities and that has made it an industry that invoices, they say, as much as agri-food. In figures from the Ministry of Culture, 47,000 million euros a year.

A hundred personalities, with Catherine Deneuve as their emblem, had denounced this "forgetfulness" in a gallery published by Le Monde. Industry minister Franck Riester was hoarse with the media.

Well, the President of the Republic, seconded by the Minister of Culture and the Ministers of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and Labor, Muriel Pénicaud, spoke yesterday with filmmakers, writers and musicians. Politicians, seated at a U-shaped table on the Elysium, remotely connected industry representatives.

It was Macron himself, white shirt, sleeves rolled up , who made the announcements. The most social concerns the intermittent calls of the show, technicians and artists who are usually hired for work, filming, days or hours. They are a group of 274,000 people who have to work 507 hours a year if they want to continue collecting the subsidy the following year between work and work. Hence the name of turn signals. Before the virus-imposed halt, only 36% had exceeded the bar. All of them extend the unemployment benefit (between contracts and contracts) until August 2021.

The date has its reason. Many of the flashers do the regulatory hours during the summer festivals , suspended this year. These events have become great wits. Olivier Py, director of the Avíñon Festival, the most outstanding of all, calculated that the exhibition has an economic impact of 100 million in the city and its area of ​​influence.

The Paris Opera could lose 40 million this year if it postpones its rentrée until January. Its director Stephane Lissner does not know how to reprogram the season that included the Wagner Tetralogy. The National Music Center estimates that unsold tickets already amount to 500 million.

All of this is still on hold. Fighting the virus and avoiding a second wave of infections is the priority. No festivals, no big museums at the moment. Yes, the rehearsals will be allowed to resume in the theaters, an art to which Macron is very fond ... and his wife, who directed the theater group of the school where the current president studied.

A report by the infectiologist François Bricaire presented to the president proposes that there be two seats of separation between spectators, mandatory mask, cancellation of the intermission and a separation of one meter between the actors. "In the case of imperative approaches in love scenes or quarrels, the comedians will have to undergo temperature measurements and serological tests" it is said in the dossier ... that he wants to quarantine all the participants in a shoot before it sounds the first "is rolled".

At the moment, Monday they open bookstores , record stores and art galleries. Along with the rest of the shops. Theaters and cinemas will have to wait. Decision in late May. The president promised a fund, without specifying the amount, to compensate those affected by the interruption of delayed or canceled filming.

Macron also announced "a great public commission program" for creators under the age of 30. "We will have to invent new ways," said the president. Insurance. He already warned himself in one of his speeches that "the day after, when we have defeated the virus, it will not be a return to the day before." So be it.

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