FRANCE: The European project is a cultural undertaking whose motto is "United in Diversity", Jacques Chirac told a large gathering in Paris. Lara Marlowe was there
President Jacques Chirac yesterday enlisted the help of the European cultural establishment in his crusade to convince the French to ratify the European constitutional treaty on May 29th.
More than 800 writers, artists, composers, dancers, fashion designers, film-makers and architects from the EU's 25 countries attended Mr Chirac's speech and a reception at the Élysée Palace, before repairing to the Comédie française for a two-day symposium entitled For a Europe of Culture.
Fifteen European culture ministers and the EU's commissioner for education and culture were present. The Irish Minister did not attended.
"The European project is demonstrably, by its very nature, a cultural undertaking," Mr Chirac said. More than anything else, he added, Europe represents "a commitment by a highly diverse group of peoples and nations to share a common ideal of civilisation, while remaining true to their individual identities." Europe's new motto, "United in Diversity", will be enshrined in the constitutional treaty if it ever takes effect.
France has long led the fight to preserve culture from the ravages of market forces - a theme that dovetails with the visceral rejection of liberal economics on the part of most opponents of the treaty.
"In a world that seems to leave less and less room for anything not driven by the profit motive," Mr Chirac said, "cultures must also resist the onslaught of standardised products. We must staunchly defend the world's diversity of cultures against the looming threat of uniformity."
In a book advocating the constitutional treaty, French foreign minister Michel Barnier warns against what he calls "McDo culture", after the American fast-food chain.
The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe - its official title - would strengthen European cultural policies, Mr Chirac told his audience in the salle des fêtes. "For the very first time, the cultural construction of Europe will become a fundamental objective of the union." Under the treaty, cultural initiatives could be taken by a qualified majority rather than unanimously, as at present.
Mr Chirac twice mentioned his own proposal - not part of the treaty - to create a "virtual European library" to counterbalance the 15 million books from US and British libraries now being put on the internet by the search engine Google.
"This is crucial if Europe is to occupy its rightful place on tomorrow's map of knowledge," he said. "In future, anything that is not available in digital form and online runs the risk of being ignored and forgotten."
Germany, Spain, Hungary, Italy and Poland have joined France in supporting the project.
Mr Chirac also appealed for support for an international convention on cultural diversity which he proposed three years ago. France hopes to see the convention ratified by Unesco in the autumn.
On the day when Le Figaro published a poll showing that 63 per cent of French people were "disappointed" with Mr Chirac's 10 years in office, the French president had found a sympathetic audience.
Tom Paulin, the Irish poet and professor of English literature at Oxford, said he didn't mind being used as a pawn in Mr Chirac's campaign for the constitutional treaty. It would be "very upsetting" if the No vote won in France. "There is a deep anti-Enlightenment streak in French culture," Paulin said. "It's destructive and racist. I have a great love of France, but you have to recognise there is this streak, which would be against the European constitution."
The British playwright Christopher Hampton didn't mind lending his support to Mr Chirac either. "We weren't called up to be pawns by the British government," he said. "They don't give a bugger about culture."
"You couldn't imagine Tony Blair making a speech like this," said the British writer and film director Hanif Kureishi. "But I notice how few blacks, Arab and Asian artists there are here," he added, surveying the room. "And this is supposed to be about cultural diversity!"
"France was created by intellectuals," said Prof Theodore Zeldin, the Oxford academic. "France is an idea, not a territory. They pay more attention to intellectuals here; they give artists and writers the feeling they're valued."
Prof Zeldin said he did not believe there would be a referendum on the treaty in Britain, but if there was, he would vote Yes "with a certain amount of unhappiness". He would like to see a union "not modelled on the old states, not with bureaucracy as its central feature". Europe "is a necessity", he added. "Our job is to humanise it."
For lunch, the ministry of culture set up a huge clear plastic tent in the courtyard of the Palais Royal. The tables were decked with linen clothes and orchids, but in the unseasonably hot weather, sweat poured down the faces of Europe's cultural elite. Many made sunhats out of their starched serviettes, or held umbrellas above their heads.
Five of Ireland's visiting artists were composers or musicians; the sixth was the multi-media artist James Coleman. Seamus Heaney was not able to attend and, amazingly, no other Irish writers were invited.
"We still have to find out about this constitution. We haven't been told anything about it in Ireland," said Bernadette Greevy, the opera singer and founder of the Anna Livia opera festival. "It's fantastic if it means we artists won't always have to go cap in hand and they will put proper people on boards, not just cronies."
In her experience, Greevy said, the "red tape" of European cultural projects was "stultifying".
Bill Whelan, the composer for Riverdance, works with Spanish, east European and American artists. "Narrow cultural nationalism is a thing of the past," he said. "We need to grow an idiom that makes sense to us, to define ourselves to ourselves. The most important question is whether it should be narrowly defined, or whether we should forget all the barriers." Whelan acknowledged transatlantic differences in the approach to culture. "In the US, you go out and sell it and make money," he said. "Here, we feel culture is something you need to grow, like in a hothouse. The right mix is probably a combination of the two."