“Neither boycott nor reprisals”: ??the government defended itself on Friday from wanting to stop artistic exchanges with three West African countries, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, where consular services were closed, after an administrative directive asking to stop all collaboration.
“We never boycott artists anywhere,” Minister of Culture Rma Abdul Malak insisted on RTL on Friday morning, indicating that a message “clarifying” this directive “will be sent today by “(s)es services”.
“There was too much confusion and obviously incomprehension following certain messages that were sent,” she regretted.
Highlighting the impossibility of issuing new visas, the minister clarified that there was “no question of stopping exchanges with artists”. “All those who already have visas and who have tours or shows planned (…) will be able to come as planned.”
For Sébastien Lagrave, director of the Africolor music festival (November 17 to December 24 in the Paris region), the consequences are, however, already concrete. “I have three concerts by Malian artists that are going to be canceled: Nahawa Doumbia, BKO Quintet, Boubacar Traoré,” the festival boss told AFP.
“We know very well that most artists are granted short-term visas, those who already have a visa are a minority, for a festival like us in November, we request visas from September, there, that’s it. “It’s impossible for them to come,” he explains. And to denounce a “violent, very abrupt and vertical” decision.
“The Minister of Culture says that there is no visa service in operation in these countries, this is false, the service providers are still open, we can process files,” he says .
Thursday, the Syndeac (National Union of Artistic and Cultural Enterprises) and its counterparts (the Aac, the Accn, the A-CDCN, the ACDN and the ASN) publicly protested against a message that they claim to have received on Wednesday “from the DRAC”, the regional cultural directorates, and “written on the instructions of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs”.
“This message with a threatening tone asks our members to suspend, until further notice, all cooperation with the following countries: Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso,” these cultural professionals specified in a joint press release.
A shower of indignant comments immediately followed, sometimes from cultural actors, sometimes from representatives of the political world.
“The text (that of the Drac, editor’s note), the way in which it was written, worries and questions a lot”, estimates to AFP Patrick Penot, director of the Sens Interdit theater festival in Lyon in mid-October, who is waiting a Burkinabé actress, currently without a visa.
“We hope for a solution for her, which is essential for one of the shows,” he said, denouncing a situation with “artists punished and banned from circulation” (…) under the pretext that their government is in trouble with ours !”.
On July 29 and August 6, France interrupted all its development aid and budget support actions with Niger and Burkina Faso. In November 2022, she had already done so for Mali.
“France has always been there to welcome artists in danger.” “We will continue to do it,” insisted the minister, in the face of the outcry.
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15/09/2023 13:34:09 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
