"She doesn't do anything like everyone else": why Rachida Dati snubbed the shows at the Avignon Festival

The world's largest theater festival, with nearly 15,000 performances, thousands of tourists, but no Minister of Culture. Rachida Dati did not stroll through the aisles of the Avignon Festival this Thursday, nor attend a performance—a rarity since the ministry's creation in 1959.

Instead, the tenant of Rue de Valois has come to the town, but far from the stage. She's headed to a retirement home that houses an art center with works from the prestigious collection of gallery owner Yvon Lambert, after a stop at a social and cultural space and a meeting with directors Mohamed El Khatib and Tiago Rodrigues, also the festival's director .

So, no more beautiful images alongside the artists in the Cour des Papes, which hosts prestigious plays. No more lyrical flights of fancy to salute the soul of the theater... But also, perhaps, some less happy photos two days before the end of the festival. The CGT Spectacle union had thus called for "coming with pots and pans" and "making noise" to welcome the minister, without really believing it would happen.

"As we suspected, she has little regard for our professions and our work, so I don't even know if she'll attend a show," Maxime Séchaud-Do Dang, deputy general secretary of the CGT Spectacle union, predicted in advance to France Bleu . His union also refused an interview with the minister. Rachida Dati's office did not respond to requests from BFMTV.

More broadly, the union had asked companies to stop playing if Rachida Dati attended a performance, all against the backdrop of several demonstrations to denounce "austerity policies that destroy culture."

"This kind of promise is frankly not very engaging. Even if the minister has a pugnacious character, we can understand that the risk of negative images should be considered," observed Renaissance MP Céline Calvez, vice-president of the culture committee at the National Assembly, speaking to BFMTV.

All the more so since Rachida Dati is already going through a difficult time as she has been referred to court for "concealment of abuse of power and trust" and "corruption and influence peddling" .

Last year, the tenant of Rue de Valois did not, however, meet with the artists, breaking with a tradition started by the first Minister of Culture, André Malraux . But should we really be surprised? Since her appointment, Rachida Dati has chosen the opposite of her predecessors. Appointed to this post to everyone's surprise in January 2024, poached directly by Emmanuel Macron , she has chosen from the start to do things her own way.

For her first trip, Nicolas Sarkozy's former minister avoided the already well-known venues and headed to the Ateliers Médicis in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil, which were obviously not chosen by chance. Conceived as a sort of "Villa Médicis" for Seine-Saint-Denis after the 2005 riots, this cultural establishment finally opened 10 years late and hosts artists in residence.

Welcomed almost like a rock star , Rachia Dati even allowed herself the luxury of being accompanied by Emmanuel Macron - the gesture, rare for a newly appointed minister, aimed both to give a boost to Rachida Dati, who has little knowledge of cultural policies , and to establish the presidential choice .

Since then, the Minister of Culture has been forging her own path, sometimes shocking the proponents of classicism. For one of her very first media appearances, she decided to speak on the DVM show , a program dedicated to rap on Twitch. This was enough to confuse a part of the presidential camp, the right and the National Rally . A few weeks later, Rachida Dati persisted and signed on, appearing on Planète rap on Skyrock .

Her predecessor Roselyne Bachelot, for example, took her first steps as Minister of Culture by visiting the Louvre in 2020. Emmanuel Macron's first Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen, was at the spring of the Comédiens de Montpellier, an institution in the world of theater, before speaking in the columns of Le Parisien to launch the opening of libraries on Sundays and the culture pass .

Rachida Dati, for her part, has unveiled in recent weeks a cultural summer "at the heart of the territories and campsites" , accompanied by the director of the film Camping, Fabien Onteniente. On the menu notably: "the caravan of young summer visitors" with artists who will set up in around thirty campsites during the summer to offer its holidaymakers friendly aperitif-shows.

"It makes some bourgeois people howl. But it's just as well that she doesn't do things like everyone else. Her background is different from that of the heirs of Culture, and that gives her a different perspective. Emmanuel Macron also appointed her for that," observes one of her former ministerial advisors.

What will allow him to ultimately boast a prestigious record in Culture? "Every time a president has strongly supported his Minister of Culture, very powerful things have emerged," former Minister of Culture Philippe Douste-Blazy explained to us at the time of Rachida Dati's appointment on Rue de Valois. Perhaps with a role model in mind: the Charles de Gaulle-André Malraux couple or François Mitterrand-Jack Lang.

The creation of the ministry, the launch of the art-house film label, the opening of cultural centers, the Fête de la Musique, and the creation of the Opéra Bastille... The achievements of Rachida Dati's two distant predecessors have indeed given her plenty to dream of leaving her mark.

But Jack Lang, like André Malraux, had remained in office for almost a decade. Rachida Dati will likely have to do much less and launch herself into the race for mayor of Paris in the coming months .