France’s cultural sector faces the urgent need for a rethink

French cultural sector funding is crumbling. Malraux’s “colonial” heritage (1959) is obsolete in the face of digital technology and political attacks. Vital urgency: decolonize or disappear.

A troubling historical parallel

The French cultural sector is currently going through a crisis that strangely echoes the one that preceded the creation of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1959. At the time, as Marie-Ange Rauch (historian, researcher specializing in the history of public theaters and social and union organizations and collective mobilizations in the performing arts in France) recounts in “Les hussards du Ministère de la Culture” (1998), André Malraux inherited “administrative segments taken essentially from the Ministry of National Education”, in a context where “National Education, from which we had torn away the State Secretariat for Fine Arts, hated us” and where “Finance wished us no good”.

However, it should be recalled that this ministry was not a creation ex nihilo imposed from above. Performing arts workers, from all trades, had been calling for a supervisory ministry since the 1920s, constantly being shuttled between National Education and the PTT. This creation therefore responded to an old and legitimate need of the cultural sector.

While 1981 marked the beginning of an apogee with the doubling of the budget under Jack Lang (going from 0.47% to nearly 1% of the State budget), 2025 seems to sound the death knell for this model. We are witnessing a reverse movement today: where the “hussars”, these former colonial administrators who had been reconverted, had built a cultural administration from almost nothing, we now see this same project in danger in the territories.

Transposed colonial methods: a two-faced domination

It is important to understand that these administrators from Overseas France brought with them their methods of administering colonized territories. As Marie-Ange Rauch points out, Emile Biasini applied with elected officials on French territory “the good old bush method: the tour, the contact, the palaver”, methods which, in a colonial context, served to impose French culture on colonized populations.

However, it would be reductive to summarize the ministry’s action to only the methods of colonial administrators. The vision of history, art, and France, the extraordinary intelligence and personality of André Malraux were the breath that pushed his team to work without sparing their efforts. Malraux’s intellectual charisma played a determining role in the survival and development of the ministry.

This transposition of colonial methods to the metropolitan territory nevertheless reveals a troubling continuity: the same logic of vertical cultural imposition, from top to bottom, was applied to French citizens. The houses of culture were conceived as “cultural departure bases, centers of diffusion and influence”, exactly as colonial posts spread “French civilization” in Africa.

Biasini himself expresses it clearly in a 1959 report: “the evolution of Africa and the future of the Community will necessarily pass through the overcoming of African particularisms, and therefore through a return to the universal values defended by French culture”. This vision, deeply colonialist, was transposed as is in France: to overcome popular “particularisms” to impose a “universal” culture defined by the elites.

Let us not forget either that this approach was not uniform across the entire territory. Many artists worked in their time for a popular theater in the noble and political sense of the term, there are always exceptions that confirm the rule.

The betrayal of democratic values: the Covid turning point

This logic of cultural domination found its culmination, unfortunately logical, during the Covid crisis (2020-2022). Faced with liberty-destroying and unconstitutional measures, the subsidized cultural sector revealed its true nature: not as a defender of democracy, but as a docile instrument of the power in place.

While Belgian cultural centers collectively refused to close to continue their democratic mission, their French counterparts obeyed without flinching. This voluntary submission sent a clear message to political leaders: the cultural sector, heir to colonial methods of control, remains a tool of domination more than emancipation.

The paradigm reversal: the end of a domination system

More fundamentally still, we are witnessing the collapse of this system of cultural domination. We are at the beginning of a new phase, comparable in importance to that of 1981 when the ministry’s budget doubled. But this time, the movement is reversed: cultural institutions, once symbolically central and dominant, have become marginal in the face of digital practices. Citizens devote an average of 35 hours per week to online cultural practices, compared to a few hours at best in traditional institutions.

This marginalization must however be put into perspective. The Ministry of Culture never obtained funding commensurate with expectations, 185 million in 1962 against 9 billion for Youth and Sports, and owed its survival only to its determination to exist. The current difficulties are therefore not solely the result of an intrinsically flawed model, but also of structural budgetary constraints that prevented it from fully meeting the ever-increasing expectations placed upon it.

The illusion of the sector’s good health persists nevertheless. As with French cinema, we are led to believe that everything is fine. Yes, there are theater admissions, but it’s mostly for American films that then refinance French cinema. Apart from a few exceptions that confirm the rule here too, French cinema does not meet its audience. It is refinanced, so much the better, but there is a real issue that we refuse to see. This illusion masks the urgency of refoundation: if we remain in defense of the past, we rot in place and become increasingly fragile in the face of future political leaders who question, sometimes legitimately, our role.

This marginalization is not just a quantitative question. It is the revenge of the “particularisms” that the “hussars” wanted to erase. Disintermediation allows popular, regional, and community cultures to express themselves without passing through the filter of institutions. Artists are now in direct relationship with their audiences via digital networks, short-circuiting the vertical legitimation system inherited from the colonial model.

Overcoming the colonial heritage: towards a true cultural democracy

The current crisis forces us to face this problematic heritage. The model of vertical cultural imposition, whether it applied to colonies then to French “provinces”, is definitively obsolete. The “hussars” had the mission to “make accessible the capital works of humanity”, a historical formulation, still defended by high-level cultural officials, which poorly hides a paternalistic and domineering vision.

Nevertheless, we must guard against systematic denigration of the Ministry of Culture which, as Marie-Ange Rauch points out, “has for too long served as a smokescreen for its adversaries”. Critical theories, leftist in appearance, can fuel the arsenal of liberal thought and serve to justify the pure and simple dismantling of the public cultural service. Criticism must therefore remain constructive and not play into the hands of those who wish for the disappearance of the ministry and cultural policies, necessary for democracy.

The issue goes far beyond the cultural sector: not reinventing ourselves means weakening democracy itself. For culture is one of the spaces where the common is forged, where representations are discussed, where possible futures are invented. If we remain inactive in the face of ongoing transformations, we abandon this essential democratic terrain.

Our mission today must be radically different: no longer to impose a “legitimate” culture defined by Parisian elites, but to recognize and value the diversity of cultures present in the territories, with cultural rights at the center. This implies definitively abandoning the colonial posture of the one who brings “civilization” to the “natives” (whether African, provincial or suburban). But it also requires rethinking the artistic forms themselves, not just the economic or organizational models: the works, the postures, the training, everything must be questioned so that art and culture continue to do good to those who make them, receive them and participate in them.

Virtuous scattering: a decolonization from within

Faced with this observation, I propose « the virtuous scattering of the cultural sector », a notion that may seem paradoxical but which responds to the urgency of the situation. It is not about reproducing the colonial model by extending it to all sectors, but on the contrary about dismantling it. Culture must no longer be a territory to conquer and administer, but a transversal dimension present everywhere: in banking, transport, construction, education, etc.

This scattering is virtuous because it recognizes that we are at the beginning of a new historical phase, as important as that of 1981 but in the opposite direction. Where Jack Lang had concentrated and institutionalized, we must disseminate and liberate. This dissemination is not a new form of cultural colonization. It is on the contrary the recognition that culture is already everywhere, in all social practices, and that we must stop trying to lock it up in institutions that reproduce the logics of domination.

This proposal must however be accompanied by an exercise of shared responsibility. As Rauch reminds us, we must “establish a balance sheet with shared responsibilities between all collaborators, all administrations, all organizations and all actors in artistic and cultural life.” Scattering must not serve as an excuse to dilute responsibilities or abandon any coherent cultural policy.

Citizen responsibility against colonial logic

Public funding creates duties, but not those imagined by the “hussars”. As I wrote, “we are not at the service of regional directorates of cultural affairs”, we are at the service of citizens who pay their taxes.

This citizen responsibility sometimes implies disobeying absurd orders, refusing the vertical logic of neo-colonial command, masked behind biopower. Belgian cultural centers understood this by refusing to close. The corporatism of the French cultural sector on the contrary reveals the persistence of a colonial mentality: defending one’s privileges as an administrator rather than serving the administered.

It must however be recognized that the abandonment of popular education by the ministry was not a deliberate ideological choice but resulted from harsh budgetary constraints. There was not really a rejection but “a tightening of its objectives, at the risk of making painful choices”. Responsibilities are therefore shared between different ministries, and it would be unfair to attribute all failures to the Ministry of Culture alone as well as to subsidized professionals.

Concrete paths for cultural decolonization

1. Definitively abandon the overhanging posture and cultivate cooperative humility. Let us stop seeing ourselves as those who bring culture to the uncultured masses. This neo-colonial vision must be radically abandoned. Citizens have their own cultures, rich and legitimate. And as in the liberated company, old skills remain useful but in new non-dominant roles. Cultural institutions can become expertise at the service of projects initiated by others, in a logic of cooperation rather than prescription, in the sense of cultural rights, which are now enshrined in law.
2. Sincere and voluntary evaluation as an exercise in humility. Document our failures, recognize that we have sometimes reproduced logics of domination. This sincere evaluation is the exact opposite of the neo-colonial certainty of its civilizing superiority. Concretely: let’s document the processes, let’s be interested in the individual paths of people (no longer abstract “audiences”). Let’s identify what fundamentally distinguishes our proposals from private cultural practices. This evaluation must be shared among peers and with citizens themselves.
3. Recognize the legitimacy of all practices and overcome the amateur/professional distinction. Netflix, TikTok, YouTube are not “inferior” practices to be corrected, but legitimate cultural spaces. The contemptuous attitude towards these practices reproduces exactly the colonial contempt for “indigenous” cultures. This amateur/professional hierarchy, central since Malraux, has become obsolete in the digital age. TikTok and digital platforms have already operated this revolution that the institutional sector refuses to see. But the recognition of the diversity of practices must not lead to an absolute relativism that would deny any specificity to demanding artistic creation.
4. Move from a territorial logic to a network logic and abandon vertical communication. The “hussars” administered territories. We must think in terms of horizontal networks, connections, circulations, without a dominant center. On social networks, let’s stop “posting” like institutions, but become sources: let’s create rich content on our sites, which people can appropriate and share. Peer recommendations are 10 times more effective than institutional communication.
5. Transform institutions into shared and open resources. No longer fortresses of legitimate culture, but open spaces where citizens come to freely draw for their own cultural projects. Let’s offer content creators the use of our spaces, our technical expertise. Let’s accompany audiences in their digital practices. The physical theater can nourish a multitude of digital scenes.
6. Create new economic models adapted to the digital age. Piracy is not a danger but a missed opportunity. If the global license law had been adopted in 2012 rather than the repressive Hadopi law, we would today have a viable economic model for the dissemination of culture in digital networks. We must imagine financing systems that recognize new forms of cultural circulation and creation, rather than clinging to outdated intellectual property models.
7. Train differently to invest all professional territories. The “hussars” were trained at ENFOM to administer colonial territories. We must train new cultural actors to invest all professional territories, not just traditional cultural institutions. Culture must irrigate banking, transport, construction, education, etc., not as a new form of colonization, but as a recognition that the cultural dimension is already present in all human activities.
8. Experiment with new actors and new alliances. Refoundation can only happen by welcoming new actors, by leaving the closed circle of the traditional cultural sector. We must create spaces for experimentation where digital creators, social entrepreneurs, activists, self-taught artists can co-construct new cultural proposals. These experiments must be real, risky, and not simple communication operations disguised as innovation.

From civilizing mission to democratic humility

The passage from “cultural democratization” (bringing culture to the people) to “cultural democracy” (recognizing everyone’s culture) is not just a semantic change. It is the passage from a colonial logic to a truly democratic logic.

The “hussars” saw in African or regional “particularisms” obstacles to overcome. We must on the contrary see in cultural diversity a wealth to cultivate. No longer a “universal” French culture to impose, but a multitude of cultures in dialogue.

The margin as a space of freedom

Jean-Luc Godard said that “it is the margins that hold the page together”. The marginalization of traditional cultural institutions is perhaps not a catastrophe but a liberation. Freed from their colonial role of cultural imposition, they can finally become spaces of freedom and experimentation.

But this requires definitively abandoning the heritage of the “hussars”: their certainty of holding legitimate culture, their method of vertical administration, their contempt for popular cultures. It is only at this price that the public cultural sector can reinvent itself.

Decolonize to survive

The history of the Ministry of Culture teaches us a crucial lesson: a system built on colonial methods carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. Cultural domination, whether exercised in Africa or in France, always ends up arousing the resistance and emancipation of the dominated.

The current crisis is not an accident but the logical outcome of a system of cultural domination. Citizens have found in digital practices spaces of freedom escaping the control of institutions. They voted with their feet, or rather with their clicks.

Faced with this emancipation, we have two choices: either we remain entrenched in the colonial model inherited from the “hussars”, and we will disappear with it; or we embrace a true cultural decolonization, recognizing the equal dignity of all cultural practices.

As Marie-Ange Rauch writes, “the fight is obviously far from over.” But this fight must not be waged in sterile guilt or systematic denigration. It is rather about building, with lucidity but without complacency for liquidating theories, a new model of cultural policy that definitively surpasses the colonial heritage while preserving the ambition of a renewed public cultural service.

The time is no longer for nostalgia for the lost cultural empire, but for the courageous invention of new forms of cultural cooperation, horizontal and respectful. It is only on this condition that the public cultural service can regain its legitimacy: no longer as an instrument of domination, but as a humble facilitator of a truly shared culture.

Thanks to emmanuel vergès for introducing me to Marie-Ange Rauch’s enlightening work.