The administrative court of Lyon ordered the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region to pay a theater a subsidy eliminated in 2023, indicated the community which is appealing this court decision. This affair triggered an outcry against the cultural policy of the then president, LR Laurent Wauquiez.
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The case of the elimination of an annual grant of 149,000 euros to the Théâtre Nouvelle Génération (TNG) in Lyon, a national drama stage established in the Vaise district, resurfaces thanks to an administrative court decision rendered this week. The removal of this subsidy caused a stir in 2023 and largely extended beyond the borders of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region.
Refusal of subsidy deemed “illegal”
In the wake of numerous other cuts in subsidies to various institutions and associations, this annual allocation to the TNG of Lyon was eliminated in April 2023. Sophie Rotkopf, vice-president of the Region in charge of Culture, justified this measure by “public positions taken by the director of TNG” then, “very critical of the cultural policy of the region and its president”. In a column dated April 18, 2023 on the SYNDEAC website, Joris Mathieu criticized the cultural policy of Laurent Wauquiez since 2022. The director of TNG denounced “autocratic excesses” of the boss of the region, evoking “a deliberate enterprise to destabilize the functioning of public cultural institutions”. The TNG had appealed to the courts to challenge the removal of this allocation. The Administrative Court of Lyon has just ruled in his favor.
The decision of the Administrative Court of Lyon, dated October 14 and made public by the daily Le Progrès, judges in particular this refusal of subsidy “illegal as long as it is based on a political motive, foreign to the general interest”. The Lyon administrative court orders the Region to pay the 149,000 euros to the TNG.
National controversy
The affair of the Lyon TNG subsidy had been the trigger for a lively regional and then national controversy: institutions, associations and actors from the world of culture, in tune with the left-wing opposition to President LR of the region, notably accusing Laurent Wauquiez of resorting to these selective cuts in the second region of France for reasons “ideological”.
In May 2023, a virulent column was signed in Télérama by 200 elected officials from different parties. In the daily Le Monde, another column was also signed by 200 personalities from the cultural worldincluding four former Ministers of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, Aurélie Filipetti and Philippe Douste-Blazy.
The signatories accused Laurent Wauquiez of “unilateral decisions” et “opaque” or from “authoritarian and populist excesses”. For its part, at the end of April, the Region then justified these cuts with a “reorientation” and a redeployment of certain subsidies for the benefit of rural areas, “those furthest from the cultural offering”. A cultural policy called “rebalancing” for the benefit of “territories“, favoring festivals, with “more than 120 subsidy increasess” in 2023 for a total envelope of around 3.3 million.
The Region appeals
The decision of the Administrative Court “is in contradiction with the most basic democratic principles” and put back “the free administration of local authorities is at stake”, writes the Region in a press release sent to AFP this Friday, October 17, adding that it will appeal.
“There is no right to obtain optional public subsidies”, insists the Region which recalls its “new directions (…) to put an end to (…) the glaring inequality in access to culture in the territory”.
The new management of the TNG, contacted by AFP, did not respond on Friday evening.