Yann Galut has the mischievous smile of someone who succeeded and didn’t believe it. “Well, I still thought we had a card to play. A mouse hole…” Black polo shirt, dark suit, tricolor cockade in his buttonhole, the mayor (various left) of Bourges can show off. On December 13, 2023, he obtained what no one would have bet a kopeck on: making his city – after Paris in 1989, Avignon in 2000, Lille in 2004 and Marseille in 2013 – the next European Capital of Culture of France, in 2028.
Bourges, 64,000 inhabitants, defense industry at half mast, without rail and road junctions, prefecture of not much, at the heart of what is commonly called the “diagonal of the void” which, from the Meuse to the Landes, seems to bring together the least populated, and in fact the most deprived, territories of France. “They didn’t want the train, the university, the factories…castigates, severely, the president of a local association. Conservative city, military bourgeoisie, cultivating community, Bourges, which was the main city of Center-Loire at the beginning of the last century, saw everything go to Tours and Orléans…” From the historic capital of Berry, which shone brightly until the 15th centurye century, welcoming in the shadow of its cathedral princes in exile and scholars of all stripes in one of the greatest universities of the kingdom, all that remains is the beauty of its damp streets under a winter sky.
Local child, 57 years old, former lawyer, SOS-Racisme activist then socialist deputy, Yann Galut receives in his mayor’s office. Behind him, the bust of a black Marianne with a raised fist, purchased in a city gallery in the summer of 2023: “If I wanted to put Bourges back on the map of Francehe asserts, the only possibility was to bet on culture. »
“The place of emergence”
September 2017. Vice-president for culture at the departmental council – he has just lost his mandate as deputy – Yann Galut is invited to lunch in an Italian restaurant in the city center by the president and the director of the historic Maison de la culture of Bourges, the first to have been inaugurated by André Malraux, in 1963. This required new premises. After six years of controversy and delays, work is finally starting. We must take advantage of the momentum, they plead: “ Have you heard of the European Capital of Culture? » At the town hall, we did not understand this astonishing question. Yann Galut, yes… And when, two years later, he attacked the town hall, he placed it at the heart of his campaign. And win.
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