PARIS, September 15 (Reuters) – France has no intention of severing its cultural ties with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, three Sahel countries now in the hands of military coup plotters, but will not be able to issue visas to artists of these countries immediately, said Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak on Friday.
“France has always been an open nation and a welcoming land for artists, so this is not a change of footing. It is an adaptation to an extremely degraded security context which particularly targets French buildings and teams French in these three countries”, she explained on RTL.
These remarks aim to reassure promoters of French shows and concerts, many of whom have received instructions from the government this week ordering them to cease all cooperation with institutions and artists from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and to suspend their financial support to the latter.
On Thursday, the French Union of Artistic and Cultural Enterprises (Syndeac) pointed out an unprecedented ban on cooperation and requested an immediate meeting with the Minister of Culture.
Rima Abdul-Malak expressed her regret that the message had caused misunderstandings, adding that she had asked her ministry to send clarifications to cultural operators.
“France has decided to reduce its teams in embassies and consulates and close visa services, so physically, it is not possible today to issue visas for artists or for any other person who applies for visas from these countries to come to France,” said Rima Abdul-Malak.
“We are not boycotting artists from anywhere (…) it is, for security reasons which I hope are temporary, not possible to make these exchanges in the coming weeks. All the artists who have already planned tours or shows planned, these will be able to come as planned”, further underlined the Minister of Culture. (Tassilo Hummel; French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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