“We have moved into the fourth dimension.” Director Jean-Paul Salomé on his X account (ex-Twitter) cannot recover from the appointment of Rachida Dati to the post of Minister of Culture, in place of Rima Abdul Malak. A shock shared by actress Anna Mouglalis, known, among other things, for her role as President of the Republic in the political series, Baron noir (Canal). “No?”, the actress is offended when a journalist tells her the news during a rally to put an end to “the old sexist world”. “In any case, Culture was destroyed, but culture is alive and its function is also to resist,” she says. Before adding to legitimize his presence in this demonstration: “There is absolutely something happening, it’s a cultural revolution. There is an awareness and new discourses that are emerging which are not the discourses of the dominant and that, whoever the Minister of Culture is, will take place.
Thursday January 11, shortly before the announcement of the reshuffle, Gaël Hamayon, former advisor to the Ministry of Culture, already expressed his fear of seeing Rima Abdul Malak leave. “As an elected official for culture in a rural area, I do not need “people” and “show business” on rue de Valois,” he anticipated on Twitter. And this deputy mayor of the town of Porspoder in Finistère (29) continued: “Let’s not let this talented minister escape us.” A few hours later, what he feared happened and it was Rachida Dati who, to everyone’s surprise, took over as head of the ministry.
In the wake of her appointment by her new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, Rachida Dati is removed from the Republican benches by Éric Ciotti. “Rachida Dati has chosen to join the Government. She places herself outside our political family. She is no longer part of the Republicans. We are in the opposition, so we draw the consequences of his choice with regret,” declared the president of the Republicans on his X account (formerly Twitter). Opposition to his appointment is not only expressed by his now ex-party. Since last night, part of the world of Culture has shown its discontent.
“She doesn’t know anything about it, but it doesn’t matter,” says Frédéric Mitterrand, Friday January 12 on the RTL morning show. “We must not hide, the great or good Ministers of Culture have always been the Presidents of the Republic,” he adds. For his part, the writer and editorialist Franz-Olivier Giesbert paints a rather comical portrait of the new minister, a good choice according to him. “Rachida Dati is Cruela, the Disney character. She is very funny, she is totally unfiltered. We already see her at the Cannes Film Festival throwing horrors,” he jokes.
“Rachida Dati was the leader of the Parisian right, who is the worst thing happening in this country in terms of anti-ecological, anti-social politics and so on,” reacts Alice Coffin, Europe Ecology advisor for the Greens from Paris. However, the author of the book The Lesbian Genius has good expectations regarding the new functions of the one she criticized a little earlier. “Because she is a politician who is not afraid of men and who has always used her political language to take a stand, to make reports against moral and sexual harassment (…). In the ministry for which she is responsible, we have more and more men who we learn have committed sexual assault. It can put them out of harm’s way.”
As for François-Xavier Bellamy, professor of philosophy and member of the European Parliament, for him “the subject is not to know where these ministers come from, but where they are going, and where they are taking the country. (…) These are the stooges of a policy of pure communication. (…) What saddens me is the disgust of citizens when they hear political leaders doing the opposite of what they have said for years,” he said on France Inter.
Laurent Domingos, co-president of the OFF Avignon Festival, also said he was “very surprised”. “There is clearly a right-wing of the government. I thought that Rima Abdul Malak was perhaps going to stay because she represented part of the left,” he notes. In her induction speech at the Ministry of Culture, Rachida Dati said she wanted to “build a new popular culture for all”. “We’re going to take her at her words. How will it protect this fragile culture of independent theaters which make up French diversity?”, he reacts, very circumspect despite this nomination.
For Olivier Dabois, boss of Prodiss, the employers’ organization representing the main musical and variety entertainment companies in France is disappointed and worried by this appointment. Disappointed that “this ministry is the adjustment variable of a government while culture requires a long time. And that we have changed ministers on average every two years since Jack Lang.” Worried because “we are expecting him on many issues, starting with the Olympics. We are not completely satisfied with the deployment of regional festivals during the Olympic Games.
Invited to speak on RTL this Friday, Pierre Arditi chose to defend Rachida Dati. “The accusation against her is that she is not on the right side, that she is not a specialist. But who is a specialist? Nobody, absolutely nobody. Who knows everything about culture? Who knows what needs to be done and what should be done and, more importantly, who does it? Nobody or practically nobody,” he regrets. “They are decapitated before they can use their heads. How can you judge someone before they have done anything? It’s grotesque,” concludes the 79-year-old actor.
