Fleur Pellerin, Minister of Culture and Communication, welcomes the success of the national call for projects «L'action culturelle au service de la maîtrise du français» launched on 1er last June, in accordance with the Prime Minister’s decision taken at the Interdepartmental Committee on Equality and Citizenship on March 6, 2015. An appropriation of EUR 1 million was made available for this purpose.
A sign that culture has a major role to play in reducing inequalities in the French language,713 projects have been proposed. These were examined in depth by a selection committee representing all the institutions concerned. Meeting from 4 to 18 September, this committee selected 146 projects submitted by cultural and social actors.
The projects selected will improve access to the French language for a large number of populations who, because they are often excluded from it, have difficulty participating in social, professional and cultural life: children who benefit from arts and cultural education outside school, young people aged 16 to 25 who are unemployed and without qualifications, adults who are not fluent in the written word, and non-francophone migrants. Detainees as well as minors covered by the Youth Judicial Protection are also concerned.
Cultural actors are at the forefront of this action at the service of social cohesion: a great diversity of practices and disciplines have been mobilized, including storytelling, writing workshops, contact with heritage works, public reading, theatre, cinema, the arts of speech (slam, rap), serious play or scientific popularization.
The 129 land projects selected concern extremely varied territories - urban, peri-urban, rural - in mainland France as well as overseas, and which have in common to be marked by various forms of remoteness or isolation. Many of them are a matter of city policy.
They are complemented by 17 tooling and training projects that have been chosen for their ability to be shared for the benefit of all networks of culture and social field.
The Ministry will carefully monitor their implementation and provide specific support, in a close dialogue with the ministries and agencies involved in the policy in favor of the mastery of French.