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    Liberté, égalité, fraternité

    laverte wrote: I guess this isn't the thread for discussing our visions of a better education system, but I will note that, in England, I think we have the worst of all worlds. The rigid curriculum and lack of diversity in teaching goals mean that the differences between one school and another are vertical (better exam results, selective intake). I don't think that's the only type of difference there should be.
    Actually, I would argue that, perhaps, a rigid curriculum is a good thing as long as it is based on evidence-based policies rather than the whims of a Minister of Education and his or her upbringing. It is an argument that needs much more development and research that I intend to do over the next couple of years. In the meantime, I agree that we are definitely experiencing the worst of of all worlds.

    ad hoc wrote: I get the feeling that you had a reason for posting this school Bored, and it all made sense in your head and so you just put your thoughts down, without explaining what was the background and the context you wanted to highlight. It has brought up laverte's interesting post, but I think if you've got a point to make and begin debate on, you perhaps need to rewrite your 19:13 post to make it clearer what you want to ask and why. Because at the moment it's just massively confusing.
    I didn't really have a point to make as such. What laverte picked up on - the French not granting state subsidy to the school when it does to thousands of religious schools - is what made me initially interested. However, it does throw up many other points.

    Although this Muslim school opened roughly the same time as 9/11 so can't really be seen as any reaction to that, it is notable that Muslim schools have been opening since then. Not many still but more than previously. Again, I doubt whether 9/11 directly affected that but, indirectly in France's reactions to Muslims as listed on this thread, there could be a move to Muslim schools. I doubted whether secular France wanted to drive children into Muslim schools. However, as laverte has clarified, no state subsidy does mean more inspections.

    Another notable point arising from that article is the state subsidy of religious school per se. This was something that, due to its secular nature, I didn't realise France did at all. That this state subsidy is given out to Jewish and Catholic schools but is held back from Muslim schools is odd and divisive.

    The erroneous point about it being in St Denis was just a post script that, in an area that has been portrayed this week as a mostly Muslim area, there is, firstly, an obviously long held feeling that a Muslim school was needed. Whether this is just due to a need for Islamic instruction in a school or a reaction to the post-9/11 anti-Islam laws we have discussed, I do not know. Secondly, whatever the reasons for the opening the school, people will see that it - and other Muslim schools that have been opened in its wake* - it is not getting state subsidies that Jewish and Catholic schools. This does not project a attitude of equality from the government.

    I suppose my main point is, as laverte alludes to, the government are not doing anything for inter-cultural relations by not subsidising the school. Indeed, as discussed before on this thread, they seem wantonly sowing the seeds of Muslim suspicions. They have also seem to have shot themselves in the foot if they want Muslim children educated in a secular, free, united and equal manner.

    *
    The first one to successfully apply, in Lille, is now considered the best-performing lycée in France.
    I thought the Lille school was still waiting for state subsidy, laverte?

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      Liberté, égalité, fraternité

      The school in Lille, Averroès, has been sous contrat since 2008. I think a couple of other Muslim schools are now subsidised by the state, at least in part. But the numbers are still far from equal.

      Probably a question of language, but I think it's an overstatement to say that children are being "driven" into Muslim schools. Proportionally, far more Muslim children attend secular establishments than catholic or Jewish children do. With a growing Muslim middle class, the growth in demand for private education probably shouldn't be surprising. There has been a huge increase in private after-school tuition in the last 15 years – much more significant than the expansion of private schools, which is, in any case, limited by a cap. A maximum of 20% of children can be educated in private schools; in England & Wales, private plus faith schools cater for close to 40% of students, I think.

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        Liberté, égalité, fraternité

        It must be my US perspective, but the inspection regime seems backwards to me.

        Are there curricular standards that come with being sous contrat? One would think that the state would have a larger interest in regulating entities that it funds.

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          Liberté, égalité, fraternité

          ursus arctos wrote: It must be my US perspective, but the inspection regime seems backwards to me.
          I'm not in the US, but I agree with you. It's a keep-religion-out-of-the-state and keep-the-state-out-of-religion thing, taken to the usual counter-intuitive level. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess it's something the écoles libres people lobbied for, without imagining that it might apply to religions other than their own.

          Are there curricular standards that come with being sous contrat? One would think that the state would have a larger interest in regulating entities that it funds.
          Yes, écoles sous contrat have to teach the national curriculum, and are inspected in an identical way to secular schools, that's to say, on lessons, discipline, management, etc. They're just not allowed to (in part because they're not qualified to) report on the teaching of religious studies, catechism, etc.

          There's a parallel, equally absurd situation regarding the Diwan schools (which teach in the Breton language) and calandretas (Occitan). Inspectors fluent in these languages have had to be recruited since the schools passed sous contrat; they can inspect all lessons that are taught in Breton/Occitan, but they can't inspect the actual teaching of Breton/Occitan because it's extra-curricular.

          Farce is a French word!

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            Liberté, égalité, fraternité

            Feydeau would have had a field day with this regime.

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              Liberté, égalité, fraternité

              I have very little idea of the history of the secular French education system, laverte, but am I wrong in assuming that the Jewish and Catholic school system pre-dated it?

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                Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                I'd say they emerged together, in opposition to one another, during the 19th century. The secular state took charge of education under Napoléon I; after the restoration there was a move back to private/religious control; this was reversed by Napoléon III; etc. The secularists finally prevailed – state education was made secular at the same time as it became compulsory, in 1881-82 – but because France didn't have a proper left-wing government until Mitterrand, church-funded schools were pretty much left to do their own thing.

                Even when I was a pupil at a catholic school (late 1970s), the teachers were not all qualified, and the school would scramble to fill its places by taking in more or less anyone – notably kids excluded from state schools and those who didn't speak French as a first language – without having the resources or the experience to deal with them. Outside of the big cities, church schools were known as dumping grounds for problem kids – some were effectively borstals – and for their terrible exam pass rates.

                It's only since the schools started coming sous contrat that they've become more like English private/faith schools. They don't instruct the catechism any more; religious faith isn't a criterion for entry; teachers have the same qualifications as in the state system; and as a result private schools are becoming more exclusively middle class and moneyed.

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                  Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                  After 70 years of Nazi-tainted dormancy, the Breton regionalist movement is making an electoral comeback by becoming a centre-left alternative.

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                    Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                    Belgium is following the French example on liberte d'expression and sentencing Dieudonne to 2 months in jail for incitement to hatred during his show

                    http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/11/25/01016-20151125ARTFIG00156-dieudonne-condamne-a-deux-mois-de-prison-ferme-par-la-justice-belge.php

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                      Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                      Nazi-tainted..?

                      The Bretons I knew who were sympathetic to/spoke a fair amount about self-determination, cultural expression, linguistic rights etc tended to be hairy/beardy/folky types who looked and sounded exactly like the hairy-beardy-folky types I met in Latin America solidarity campaigns in Wolverhampton

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                        Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                        They could join forces with the Free Kernow lot.

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                          Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                          To be more serious about DR's link: it might be a good time for a challenge from the left to the ridiculously monolithic 'Republican values'.

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                            Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                            loose cannon wrote: Belgium is following the French example on liberte d'expression and sentencing Dieudonne to 2 months in jail for incitement to hatred during his show

                            http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/11/25/01016-20151125ARTFIG00156-dieudonne-condamne-a-deux-mois-de-prison-ferme-par-la-justice-belge.php
                            That's a troubling development, regardless of what on thinks of his politics. Dieudonné was already arrested in his home and imprisoned after the Charlie H. massacre for a tweet.

                            Comment


                              Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                              Felicity, I guess so wrote: Nazi-tainted..?

                              The Bretons I knew who were sympathetic to/spoke a fair amount about self-determination, cultural expression, linguistic rights etc tended to be hairy/beardy/folky types who looked and sounded exactly like the hairy-beardy-folky types I met in Latin America solidarity campaigns in Wolverhampton
                              The pre-war Breton nationalists certainly became collaborators, one fled to Ireland and built the Ballyseedy Monument, with which Irish posters will be familiar.

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                                Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                What a shame that, after France's excellent feelgood factor engendered by the Euros (for me, at least), this crap is starting to emerge again.

                                Comment


                                  Liberté, égalité, fraternité

                                  BBC unveils the new theme tune for the Andrew Marr show. Guaranteed an actual fascist gets an easier time than Corbyn.

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                                    Originally posted by Reginald Christ
                                    "A fierce row has erupted in Paris after a major publisher announced it would produce a new collection of the violently antisemitic hate pamphlets of the French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline."

                                    Let me first confess my ignorance and say I've never heard of this man, despite the article's description of him being considered one of France's greatest writers. That's not meant to sound like a high-court judge, by the way, I'm making no judgements one way or the other on the quality of his other works. But this decision seems, in the current climate, reckless and irresponsible at the very least. Vile at worst. I can understand making material like what's being described available to academics or historians but to publish 1,000 pages of nakedly anti-Semitic hate speech... there's no defence or justification for this, surely?
                                    Thanks for your earlier post alerting me to the existence of this French thread which had escaped me.

                                    French publisher suspends reprint of Céline's anti-Semitic texts


                                    Ah, Céline, hmm, a topic that is becoming more and more difficult to broach... I love his first novel,Voyage au bout de la nuit (no anti-Semitic shit in it), never read anything else from him.

                                    Yes, Céline is very famous in France (while being almost unknown in the English-speaking world) and considered a major writer but he is largely remembered for one book only, his first one, Journey to the End of the Night, which I read when I was 18 so a while ago, a beautiful, absorbing book in a very dark way. So when people talk of Céline being one of the greatest French writers etc. (a huge exaggeration IMO but let's pass on this), it is really this particular book they're thinking of. The rest is largely unknown. I've met/known and know plenty of people who've read Voyage au bout de la nuit but hardly anyone who's read anything else from him.

                                    Journey to the End of the Night was published in 1932 and was particularly lauded by the French left, but by everyone really. It was a best-seller (unlike his second one in 1936 which was panned by critics/reviewers) and was lauded for the writing style, the themes that he expresses and the emotions he conveys in it: pacifism, anti-colonialism, anti-nationalism, anti-heroism, anti-capitalism, about human exploitation, the human condition and its vilest aspects, the absurdity of life etc. It was pretty philosophical in essence, Céline was an existentialist before the term and concept really existed, in France anyhow, although writers like André Malraux were emerging (Man's Fate was published only a year after Journey to the End of the Night) but in a less bleak, more hopeful, more militant way. So all this, all these themes in Journey to the End of the Night, immensely appealed to the French intelligentsia and still do, hence his lasting popularity even if, of course, his legacy is far more controversial now (it's about five years after Journey to the End of the Night that he started to write his anti-Semitic filth, late 1930s, pamphlets mainly I think, published between 1937 and the mid 1940s). Céline had been a GP, had worked in the poor parts of the Paris area and had observed poverty and misery from close quarters, also WWI and its horror, all that had terribly marked him.

                                    He is also very famous because of his persona, his very controversial nature, the vileness of some of his writing, and because he had a unique style, he wrote in a very idiosyncratic, innovative style which mesmerised and shocked in equal measures, it was all pretty ground-breaking (which is often the main reason many writers/artists rise to fame and remain well-known, because they are pioneers, regardless of the quality of their work).

                                    Not sure how well Voyage au bout de la nuit translates into English though, Céline's writing style was very raw, a mixture of spoken language laced with slang etc.
                                    Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 05-02-2018, 21:55.

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                                      2 bits of French news from me: 1) Jupiter (Macron’s nickname) and the “Nutella riots” 2) Corsica (tomorrow or later this week)


                                      1) The French government wants to ban a range of supermarket promotional offers (mainly on food products) and generally crack down on borderline legal in-store promotions, such as bogofs and the Intermarché 70% discounts on Nutella that sparked the hysterical scenes that we saw in France a fortnight ago.

                                      Officially, it’s all about helping the French farmers, struggling small producers etc. and defend them against the evil capitalist supermarket chains. How noble and principled of Macron, the modern French Robin Hood. Unofficially, of course, it has eff all to do with Macron having sleepless nights about French farmers being shafted and bullied senseless by la grande distribution (supermarket chains). Christ, it’s common knowledge that supermarkets have always been shitting on farmers from a great height and not much has been done about it (“Our priority is to protect the consumers’ purchasing power”, politicians usually fess up when probed a bit).

                                      As often, it’s all about image. Macron is said to have been infuriated by the dreadful publicity that these “Nutella riots” have generated around the world in a loop for days on end; “terrible PR for France”, Jupiter and top Macronists have been heard saying, with great alarm.

                                      Picture these two simultaneous scenes and their respective stages (the first one is made of two interconnected elements): 1) the Versailles Palace, aka the Sun’s King Palace (the grandest of venues, picked for the “Choose France” summit) + the Davos Summit. 2) various Intermarchés in deprived French neighbourhoods.

                                      As Jupiter and his Prime minister Édouard Philippe were busy wooing 140 of the world’s most powerful CEOs into investing in France while basking in the gilded opulence of the Versailles Palace and being wined & dined by “the Emperor of French cuisine”, multi Michelin-starred Alain Ducasse, and as they continue the French charm offensive at Davos two days later, the ungrateful gueux* of France came up with nothing better than to have a right old ding-dong in supermarkets for a few tubs of chocolate spread in full view of the world’s mass media. Said media which naturally downed tools like shit off a shovel on Versailles & Davos to flock instead to Intermarchés like flies to a turd, long enough to gleefully report on the Pampers riots that kicked off shortly after the Nutella riots and the Versailles & Davos schmoozefests.



                                      Fuck me, at that point, had Madame Macron appeared on a Versailles balcony and shouted to the media down below: “Let them have Nutellaed brioche and decent nappies for their bairns“, it wouldn’t have looked that outlandish but very much “dans le sens de l’histoire” as they like to say in France, it’s inevitable, it’s the natural course of events, history unfolding naturally before our eyes…

                                      It wasn’t unfortunate timing: it was proper fucking diabolical timing. You’ve got to say, as crap timings go, this is right up there with the crappest of them.

                                      Fucking fantastic. Nutella riots followed by Pampers riots while the elites are in Versailles Palace gorging themselves on sautéed langoustines and foie gras poached in sea urchin. So, after offering the world's media the first riots for something that looks suspiciously like shit, France was now gifting them on a silver plate riots for something that actually collects the brown stuff. I suppose we should praise Intermarché for the imaginatively bold joined-up thinking (the Brexit dpt could do with a bit of that) but the Macron gvt wasn’t impressed.

                                      Macron is reported to have gone ape shit at that point and had the Intermarchés bosses summoned chop chop to Bercy (the monumental seat of the Finance Ministry in Paris, a great big fuck-off building on the right bank of the Seine) where the economy minister read them the riot act. (Apparently, what Intermarché did wasn't quite legit, they hadn't adhered to some obscure charter or other used in that trade, that sort of bollox, the Macron gvt was clutching at straws but I suppose they had to find some sort of excuse to justify this very public hauling over the coals; I mean charters, FFS, who the fuck sticks to them in those sectors?)

                                      Anyway yesterday, the Intermarché boss came out saying that Intermarché would stop to offer heavy, -70% types of discounts. A bill has been tabled for later this year to better frame this area (type of discounts) in legislation.

                                      Great cartoon....





                                      [*beggars, paupers, the indigents, the needy. Old (15th century) derogatory term to refer to the poorest in society (allegedly used a lot by kings, the aristocracy etc.) but now mainstream as it was reclaimed in the 1990s by some comedy film directors and comedians to mock the way politicians talk or think of the poor, and by extension the working poor/the working classes. In her best-seller Thank you for this moment, François Hollande’s ex partner wrote that Hollande would frequently refer to the poor as “les sans dents”, the toothless ones. She undoubtedly had a huge axe to grind - was cheated on in a public and rather humiliating manner, so hell has no fury like a woman scorned and all that - but I don’t think he’s ever denied it]
                                      Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 05-02-2018, 22:43.

                                      Comment


                                        Shiny, humane, liberal centrism latest

                                        Comment


                                          Chris Deerin is now punting Adonis as the Macron figure Sensible Britain needs. Fucking hell.

                                          Comment


                                            Originally posted by Moonlight shadow View Post
                                            Kev, the anecdote about Le Havre seems a bit Daily Telegraph, ranting about alternative culture and a dig at Lang, concluding with the election of a rw mayor which seems to be good news. Not sure if it is the author comment or the website commentator spinning the tale tbf.
                                            This book, Dans mon pays lui-même, was written in 1992-93, so any related material mustn’t necessarily be judged by our current standards of reasoning or viewed through a present-day prism. This sort of outraged comments (be they from Meyer, the people he talked to or the Babelio.com summariser) could simply be a reflection of how art was regarded at the fag end of the Jack Lang era by many, including by older left-wing journalists (of which there are many shades), a transitional era during which culture/the arts underwent dramatic changes (huge directional shift) and seriously challenged conventional thinking. Compare and contrast the Jack Lang years with the dusty, conservative cultural policies pre 1981 with their top-down approach, heavy focus on national heritage, theatre etc., and their narrow scope – tiny budgets, lack of structure and ambition; with the notable exception of André Malraux in the 1960s, the first ever Culture minister in France as De Gaulle created the very concept of a Ministry of Culture in its own right, who was reasonably pro-active on this front and set about “organising” and developing culture – eg the creation of the “maisons de la culture” and setting up of a proper regional structure, but with not even 0.3 % of the gvt budget earmarked for culture, it was never going to be spectacular. In spite of the impetus provided by May 68 movement, the 1970s continued to suffer from under-investment, a lack of direction and chronic instability – culture ministers changed every year on average! – and culture stagnated due to its low profile).

                                            When Mitterrand arrived in 1981, a much greater emphasis was placed on all forms of culture and enthusiasm for culture and the arts under his successive governments (especially in the 1980s) reached unprecedented levels, “fanatical” levels some would say. Culture & the arts became the new religion, at least that's how it was hyped. More autonomy – decentralisation – and more creativity were made possible by the progressive doubling/trebling of the culture budget (but still relatively low at 1% of state spending in 1990). This partly explained why a number of municipalities/mayors got carried away with it and inevitably a backlash ensued. The prevalent feeling in some quarters was that there were too many “experimental pretentious arty-farty things” going on and that municipalities, especially communist ones such as Le Havre’s, were spending (i.e wasting) too much on culture & art in general and in particular on the more unorthodox forms of art, performing arts, conceptual stuff etc. And I think that by then, the early 1990s, many people (especially the over-40s) felt we were overdosing on avant-garde, youthful cultural stuff.

                                            There is also the fact, and it mustn’t be played down here, that Jack Lang, a visionary but also a very arrogant and divisive character, had made many enemies (left right and centre, literally) by then, the early 1990s. Lang ended his tenure at the Ministry of Culture on the back foot and opinions on him and his on-going legacy became very entrenched (it has since considerably softened and his legacy is viewed much more positively now). So anything even vaguely connected to Lang or was bound to be harshly judged.

                                            My general opinion on this (that sort of Le Havre comments), with the benefit of hindsight, is that yes, I’m sure many mistakes were made, I’m sure that quite a few municipalities got carried away with and were preachy or dogmatic about it (their cultural/art policies), but putting culture at the centre of society or at least placing a much greater emphasis on it hugely benefited the country as a whole and was a masterstroke (“Economy and culture: it’s the same fight!'" Jack Lang once said, “Économie et culture, même combat !, not a May 68 slogan per se but very May 68-ish of course).

                                            Comment


                                              And I’ll add that it benefited the country both at a micro level (subsidised concerts/exhibitions etc.) and at a macro level (Fête de la Musique, the Grands Projets Culturels programmes etc. You could argue that the Grands Projets were very Paris-centric and saying as I’ve just done that “it benefited the country as a whole” is a little odd but many things were also happening in the provinces, not just "tangible" stuff like more museums or the Futuroscope and such but also things like festivals, or Le Puy du Fou etc. and it radiated throughout the country even though it took a while to happen sometimes and reach all corners of France. Mass cultural tourism emerged from that period (massively facilitated of course by cheap & easy travelling/globalisation - still, the cultural legacy of that era is hugely significant).

                                              I’m not just talking here of cultural projects in sizeable, wealthy-ish, touristic towns/cities or even much less prosperous ones (the Pompidou Centre in Metz, the Louvre in Lens or the Guggenheim in Bilbao spring to mind) that such programmes were meant to help regenerate but also much smaller places. I’m talking about small sleepy towns that have hugely benefited from the impetus and kick in the backside given to arts & culture in the 1980s-1990s, town such as Rodez for instance.

                                              Rodez is a small, remote, has-seen-better-days type of town with not much going on before 2000 (I know because I went there a few times between 1980 and 1995), but whose profile and local economy have really been boosted by the opening of the Soulages Museum in 2014 (but mooted in the early 2000s, a project in passing which was strongly opposed by the local population, 85% of them were against it – too expensive, too elitist, Pierre Soulages is too niche etc. They first had to win over Soulages himself, to get him to accept the project and then to donate a lot of his works -
                                              which is coveted therefore very expensive-, they had to fend off serious competition – eg Montpellier wanted the museum –, then they had to convince the town + department & region councils to invest millions in the project etc.).
                                              Caution of course is of the essence as it’s still early days relatively speaking but for a small, ordinary town like Rodez, it’s already a massive success: 300,000 paying visitors a year, well-off tourists and visitors from all over the world and international recognition (Picasso museums lending Soulages museum their work for exhibitions, “Nobel” Prize of architecture in 2017 for its three Spanish architects etc.). Same sort of success story for nearby Albi with its Toulouse-Lautrec museum (+32% rise in job creation in the Albi area since the museum reopened in 2012 after an eleven-year long period of renovation, massive boost for these small, out of the way towns). But obviously, it’s not a model you can replicated ad infinitum, there have been spectacular failures too, for a variety of reasons.

                                              Comment


                                                Those are impressive numbers. I wonder if free museums are the way to go or not. Dundee is looking for about 300 000 a year to the V&A opening there this year. I hope they do it, but if you depend on donations, can it survive? Only a ten year lease on the brand from Tristram and pals. I’m generally very sceptical of Bilbao Effect Regeneration through Iconic Brand Starchitect bollocks. But at least Dundee is spending 20 years spending about a billion trying to reconnect its waterfront to the city, and just mibees generating economic activity along quite a long shoreline. The Iconic Waterfront Building isn’t the only thing going on. And then, alas, Brexit.

                                                Comment


                                                  Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                                  Those are impressive numbers.
                                                  The Soulages museum is well managed, now well established etc. and therefore regularly benefits from loans from major European museums, very handy for marquee exhibitions, that's helped them to gain notoriety and boost the numbers (eg a recent Picasso exhibition set up in the temporary exhibition hall part of the Soulages museum, that really pulled in the punters).

                                                  Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                                  Dundee is looking for about 300 000 a year to the V&A opening there this year. I hope they do it, but if you depend on donations, can it survive?
                                                  It's tricky without municipal/regional/state aid like they do in France (although they don't have the national lottery money to help fund them), especially if no entrance fee (Soulages museum: €7-11 per person/adult, with the usual system of Culture Passes or subscriptions etc. so not raw numbers but I would imagine they draw a substantial % of their budget from entrance fees).

                                                  The Louvre Lens is starting to flag by the sound of it. There are many many things to factor in (location being super important of course) but state subsidies and good management are obviously a good base. Plenty of successes but also plenty of flops (Walsall New Art Gallery springs to mind: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...e-1895567.html).

                                                  Comment


                                                    Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
                                                    tiNot sure how well Voyage au bout de la nuit translates into English though
                                                    I couldn't read the original but can highly recommend the translation.

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