The former Minister of Culture, whose appointment will be formalized in the coming days, takes over from Irène Basilis.
by Roxana Azimi
The ex-member of the Socialist Party Aurélie Filippetti follows the traces of Chiraquian Jean-Jacques Aillagon, but in the opposite direction: she will soon abandon her business card from former Minister of Culture to occupy the management of cultural affairs of The city of Paris. In this eminent position, to which she succeeds Irene Basilis, the novelist will be responsible for some 2,800 municipal agents, partly exhausted by the COVVI-19. In February, the staff of the one hundred and four went on strike to protest against the low wages and the surregime. His direction oversees all the music conservatories, which crack under the requests, Paris Museums, the Châtelet theater, the Gaité Lyrique and ensures the dynamism of the countless cultural associations still subsidized by the City.
The choice of Aurélie Filippetti is obviously political, at a time when Anne Hidalgo is working to win back her authority within the municipal majority before the future budget, in December. But not in the political sense, assures the entourage of the mayor. “The real challenge of these cultural establishments is to reinvent oneself, to return to the heart of people’s lives, we tell Anne Hidalgo’s office. For this, inventive personalities capable of giving an impulse. “
Five other candidates
Leaving rue de Valois in 2014, Aurélie Filippetti had not been credited with a flattering assessment. While his appointment, at the very beginning of François Hollande’s mandate, had been praised by cultural circles, tired by Nicolas Sarkozy, the climate quickly deteriorated. This daughter of Lorraine minor, a convinced feminist who had taught literature before starting a political career, had to justify an unprecedented planing stroke for culture: – 4 % in 2013, – 2 % in 2014. The betrayal of the promise Sanctuarization of the budget, among other snakes, breaks the idyll between the circles of culture, forever nostalgic of Jack Lang, and the left of government. Aurélie Filippetti will however succeed in saving the support fund for French cinema and bringing the rate of VAT to the book at 5 %, while defending the cultural exception in Brussels.
With her comeback in Paris, obtained against five other candidates, she finds the opportunity for a rebound. After her defeat in 2017 in the legislative elections in Moselle, she had been excluded from the PS for having supported a dissident list in the senatorial elections, then made her farewell to active politics. Since then, she has chained the costumes: polemicist in the program “On rebuilding Le Monde” on RTL, teacher at the IEP in Paris where she still provides courses in cultural policy, political humanities and literature. Since 2020, she directed the Villa Finly, in Florence, managed by the Chancellery of Universities.
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