• This Tuesday, more than a hundred cultural actors demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the regional council in Lyon.

  • They denounce the severity and brutality of the budget cuts made "without consultation" by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, chaired by Laurent Wauquiez.

  • Their request for a hearing was unsuccessful.

"Wauquiez, give the money back!"

», « SOS Culture in distress!

», « We want art-gent!

“… Several hundred cultural professionals demonstrated in Lyon on Tuesday to protest against the budget cuts made according to them “brutally and without consultation” by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.

According to the opposition to the regional council, some four million euros in subsidies have been withdrawn from 140 cultural actors, a change of course that the camp of the president LR of the region Laurent Wauquiez declared at the end of May "to assume" by evoking " reorientations”.

"Total contempt"

“There is a lack of consideration and total contempt with these cuts devoid of prior dialogue”, regrets Jean Bellorini, director and director of the National Popular Theater (TNP) in Villeurbanne, amputated by 150,000 euros this year, or 30% of its usual regional allocation.

The ecological municipalities of Lyon and Grenoble were particularly affected by these cuts.

In Lyon, the Biennale of Contemporary Art (-253,000 euros, i.e. -34%), the Villa Gillet, which manages literary programs (-350,000 euros, i.e. -100%), the Maison de la Danse ( -180,000 euros, or -47%), or the cultural place of "Subsistances", (-150,000 euros, or -53%).

"No choice" to increase the price of tickets

“We will be forced to increase ticket prices, we have no choice.

But that risks scaring people away,” fears Luc Autran, volunteer at the Vochora music festival, in Tournon-sur-Rhône (Ardèche), who lost “between 15 and 20%” of his endowment.

In addition to the new "budgetary guidelines" of the 2022 budget, which according to the region aim to direct funds to "territories furthest from the cultural offer", a "Covid fund" has been set up for structures weakened by the health crisis, initially endowed with 500,000 euros, as well as a new system of calls for projects.

Several protesters castigated the "irony" of the "Covid fund" when they say the region has failed to support them during the crisis.

Others have pointed to the “deadly” dimension of calls for projects, which generate instability among cultural actors forced into unpaid preparatory work for time-limited grants.

A plea for consultation

"It is essential to get around the table, if they have a project that they do it in consultation instead of governing alone against everyone", protests Joris Mathieu, director of the New Generation Theater in Lyon and elected member of the Syndicate. of artistic and cultural enterprises (Syndeac).

A trade union delegation asked for an audience with the regional authorities, but in vain.

Contacted by AFP, Laurent Wauquiez's team was not available to react.

Lyons

Lyon: "Laurent Wauquiez does not want a culture that teaches you to think", criticizes the city after the announcement of the reduction in subsidies

Policy

Lyon: What are Laurent Wauquiez's intentions?, wonder the cultural actors targeted by reductions in subsidies

  • Culture

  • Economy

  • Demonstration

  • Subsidies

  • Laurent Wauquiez

  • Lyons

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes