ABSTRACT
Guy Saez, former research director at CNRS-PACTE (University of Grenoble Alpes), is one of France’s leading experts on regional cultural policies. This 12-minute podcast, produced by the Observatory of Cultural Policies (OPC) and the History Committee of the Ministry of Culture, is the tenth episode in a series on the historical development of cultural policies in France.
Guy Saez begins with an observation: globalization has redistributed roles between states and major cities, with the latter becoming cultural command centers that shoulder an increasing share of cultural funding. This realignment generates several fundamental tensions between global and local, public and private, and autonomy and heteronomy—tensions that major cities are struggling to resolve.
In response, the “creative city” has emerged as the dominant strategy: international competition through prestigious cultural facilities and cultural districts, and policies designed to attract highly educated residents. But this model carries the risk of excluding other social groups, forcing metropolitan areas to supplement it with a participatory component—which in turn reveals a contrast between the influence of the city center and the reality of facilities in outlying areas. Added to this is the issue of the intercultural city: the metropolis serves as a melting pot for diverse cultural communities, an issue that France approaches more from the perspective of cultural pluralism than multiculturalism.
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