Paris (AFP)
The Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot refused on Tuesday to give a date for the reopening of cultural places, believing that it would be "totally irresponsible" on her part, before the Commission for Cultural Affairs of the National Assembly.
Pressed for criticism of the criminalization suffered by cinemas, theaters and museums, Ms. Bachelot protested against "the impression that there are the good on one side, and the bad guys, us (the government), on the other".
"Museums and historic monuments could be structures which, as part of a stabilization of the epidemic, could be the subject of a supervised reopening", indicated the minister who consulted those in charge of museums "ready to rework gauges and operating modes ".
With the different sectors, she explained, "we are working on the development of a model of gradual reopening according to more adaptable modalities so that we are not confronted, at each change in the situation, with a choice. binary: leave the establishment open or closed ".
Cultural players "need perspectives in terms of methods and timing. Their economic model with long investment cycles requires even more acuity on this requirement", she argued.
Asked about a test concert in Barcelona in December, where 463 people had been admitted after a PCR test and at the end of which no case of contamination had been detected, Ms. Bachelot invited "not to focus on an experiment ", whose" generalization is not so simple ".
It would be up to theaters to "implement these precautionary measures. Are they acceptable, compatible with the economic mode of private establishments? It is the entertainment world (...) who will tell me : that we can do, that we can not ".
"It is also an extremely complicated experiment to set up in the normal functioning of a theater," she said, citing the thousands of tests to be carried out before a performance and the obligation for the public to " come very early ".
In addition, she objected, it would be necessary to proceed to "a labeling of the rooms: the rooms + fight against the pandemic compatible + and others which would not be".
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