What role does culture play in the RN's platform?
What would the National Rally do if, on the evening of July 7, it had a majority to govern? To attempt to answer this question, we currently have a wide—yet vague—range of evidence at our disposal. And that is no coincidence.
Emmanuel Négrier, University of Montpellier
An examination of the National Rally’s (RN) governance in French municipalities helps clarify the nature of the historic moment in which we find ourselves and consider how it might give culture and heritage a “major role in the country’s moral recovery” (RN Heritage booklet).
But on the other hand, there is the platform as it was presented during the 2022 presidential election, following on from the 2017 platform and the National Front’s platform from the 2002 election. The changes are noticeable, but the core of the platform remains relatively consistent. It is very much in line with the policies of far-right governments in Europe.
A modest place in the RN's platform
We should not, at this point, attribute any greater coherence or depth to what a National Rally (RN) cultural policy program might look like. Why? For one thing, it occupies a relatively modest place—even if its importance is being reassessed—within the political agenda. The RN’s neo-Gramscian turn—referring to the Marxist philosopher’s idea that the conquest of hegemony requires a cultural struggle—remains limited.
On the other hand, this program is designed more with a view to winning people over than waging a culture war. If it appears so respectful—on the surface—of existing achievements (cultural heritage, intermittent work status, the “Pass Culture” program, grants for creative projects, etc.), it is also to avoid provoking an outcry from a cultural community known for being “outspoken”—one that is generally well-regarded by the public and largely impervious to the National Rally’s stance in general.
This rhetoric of “de-demonization” and these common traits are also evident in the way the few RN-led local governments manage cultural affairs. What do we see there? On the one hand, local RN leaders make no effort whatsoever to make a splash with cultural initiatives. Julien Sanchez, in Beaucaire (Gard), certainly saw the staff of his cultural department leave, but he recruited new ones while turning the municipal library into a convenient dumping ground for employees opposed to him. But he has extended the theater season established by the previous team and delivers a speech there before each performance presented by the same theater company that has been active in the town for over 20 years.
He brought greater attention to Camargue’s cultural traditions and local folklore by giving a speech before each evening concert during the Fêtes de la Madeleine. He inaugurates the nativity scene with his presence, wearing the tricolor sash, willing to risk repeated fines—which he couldn’t care less about.
In the case of Beaucaire, as elsewhere, we are witnessing a repoliticization of culture, in the sense that elected officials are becoming involved in decisions that are usually left to cultural professionals. The erosion of the latter’s influence remains relatively subtle and difficult to counter politically.
In Perpignan, Louis Aliot and his deputy for culture have regained control over a policy that had been shaped by institutions at odds with his values, which led to conflicts with the Casa Musicale—a major player in contemporary music across its social diversity—and even the refusal to provide any support for certain genres, such as rap. However, he has maintained his support for the city’s flagship event: the Visa pour l’image photojournalism festival.
While local cultural icons are generally protected (particularly by authorities at other levels—intermunicipal, departmental, regional, and national), the community organizations most actively involved in community education or cultural programs in neighborhoods are quietly deprived of support—either directly (through cuts to subsidies) or indirectly—by being required to pay rent at deliberately exorbitant rates, as was seen in Hénin-Beaumont with the League for Human Rights.
On the contrary, significant emphasis is placed on the traditional and folkloric cultures of each of these territories. Politicization, folklorization, and the rejection of cultural diversity are therefore both present and subtle in the RN’s management of these cities. This is hardly surprising: these municipalities serve as deliberate “laboratories” intended to demonstrate the RN’s ability to govern, while maintaining the most ideologically neutral stance possible.
The RN's Cultural Program
First and foremost, this program places a tremendous emphasis on heritage in its most conservative form—one centered on buildings. It ignores the most contemporary interpretation of heritage, which takes many forms and gives due consideration to intangible heritage, embracing the diverse communities of citizens living in France and what constitutes heritage for them.
The measures are both specific and highly targeted. The tax overhaul—which is already highly favorable to property owners, particularly with regard to inheritance—is intended to benefit owners of castles and country estates. It would be accompanied by the elimination of taxes on the “Loto du patrimoine,” which, despite its modest scale (equivalent to a regional historic preservation agency), helps fund projects that are, in part, different from those overseen by the Ministry of Culture.
To further consolidate this policy, there are plans to significantly increase the budget for heritage restoration and to complement this with the implementation of a national heritage service for 18- to 24-year-olds, lasting six months and renewable once. These youth work programs, which already exist—just like the other version of the integration work programs—will likely be tasked with carrying out the “moral rehabilitation” mentioned above.
As stated, this policy focuses primarily on form and means. Nothing is said about the substance of their plan. To get a clearer picture, we must make the—not particularly bold—assumption that the heritage in question will be evaluated in terms of this value of moral renewal, based once again on the campaign platform: “The Nation finds itself in the places, landscapes, and monuments where it was formed” (brochure, p. 7).
It would therefore be influenced by “national preference,” which harks back to a golden age that cannot be found. At best, it would involve the invention of a homogenized and mythologized past that art historians tear apart—as Gabor Sonkoly does with regard to the reconstruction of Buda Castle and its biases toward authenticity and instrumentalization—and thus through a logic of exclusion.
Neoliberal orientation
While it is difficult to elaborate on—let alone imagine—the specifics of the RN’s cultural heritage policy, what can be said about its other aspects? The privatization of the broadcasting sector sheds light on the neoliberal and populist dimensions of the project.
This is an alternative to the approach taken by Giorgia Meloni in Italy, which ensures more direct control over content within the framework of RAI’s public ownership: in Italy, the far-right government is attacking intellectuals.
This French neoliberal orientation takes on a second meaning through the routine criticism voiced by National Rally (RN) elected officials—both in Parliament and in the rare speeches that address culture—toward contemporary artistic creation, which they claim runs counter to “people’s tastes.” Elevating these tastes to the status of a criterion for evaluating cultural policy runs counter to any ambition in this area, which, in the words of Jean Vilar, consists of offering people things they might like (rather than what they already like).
Above all, it runs counter to the spirit and letter of the LCAP law (Freedom of Creation, Architecture, and Heritage), which sets out the limits of public intervention in artistic content—a law whose provisions the RN’s elected officials are unaware of (in both senses of the word).
"People's tastes" as a guide
Instead of public policy, legitimate cultural decision-making would thus essentially be reduced to individual choices already made by people—and one might wonder where those choices come from: a family tradition? An educational background? Media driven by audience ratings? This is a neoliberal endeavor in the sense that it reflects a dual distrust of both cultural institutions and creative freedom.
This choice reflects—albeit in a much more moderate tone—the cultural views Jean-Marie Le Pen had already been advocating: “In the diabolical quadrangle of France’s destruction led by Establishment politicians—following biological extinction (France’s declining birth rate), migratory submersion (settlement immigration), and the disappearance of the Nation (Euro-globalism)—the fourth side is that of cultural genocide ” (National Front Cultural Program, 2002).
Given this neoliberal stance, Marine Le Pen’s pledge—made during the 2022 campaign—to maintain start-up grants and the status of intermittent workers in the performing arts should be viewed with the utmost caution. Regarding the latter, however, there is no longer any mention of the plan to tighten controls on its use through the introduction of a professional license, which she had proposed in 2017. There is also little doubt as to how arts and cultural education policy would be implemented under the leadership of a Ministry of Culture headed by the National Rally.
We can therefore easily conclude that the RN's cultural program is characterized by three features:
- A national and unified vision of cultural heritage;
- a neoliberal approach to the audiovisual sector and the creative industries, which is not incompatible with increased control over content.
- A reactionary focus on the connection between culture and society.
Subverting the Existing Tools
Finally, the RN government’s approach to culture can only be understood by bearing in mind that it may well limit its agenda to a few formal decisions, since the real challenge for it is to take the helm of existing institutions and subvert their entire mindset without altering them.
The RN’s cultural heritage policy draws inspiration from the status quo, but its substance would be radically altered by a different political agenda. Funding for the arts, the status of freelance workers, and the Francophonie might well have the same resources at their disposal, but these would be channeled toward very different political priorities. It is therefore through concrete action, according to this hypothesis, that we might see a radical political program at work—that is, the translation of slogans (“national preference,” “heritage identity,” “rejection of multiculturalism,” “people’s tastes”) into instruments of action, or even levers of hegemony.
Emmanuel Négrier, CNRS Research Director in Political Science at CEPEL, University of Montpellier, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.