Despite strong protests from the municipal opposition during heated debates and reciprocal accusations of “damaging” the image of the city, the Strasbourg council approved on Monday a 2.5% drop in subsidies to several cultural institutions local. Jeanne Barseghian, the environmentalist mayor of the Alsatian capital, had already announced this drop of 2.2 million euros last week. A drop which, according to the mayor, is not linked to energy costs, but to a redeployment of longer-term credits in favor of new projects.
“The course is held despite the difficulties,” she assured the city council on Monday. The municipality intends to “give visibility” to cultural institutions by renewing for three years their agreements of objectives and means expiring. Among the ten organizations affected by the reduction in credits are the Opéra national du Rhin and the Orchester philharmonique de Strasbourg.
A “double error”
The decision of the management team was challenged by the opposition. “It is you who are damaging the image of Strasbourg”, launched the municipal councilor Pierre Jakubowicz (Horizons). Driving the point home, the former mayor (PS) of Strasbourg and former minister Catherine Trautmann accused the municipality of committing “a double error” by adding the drop in credits to the increase in the operating costs of the subsidized bodies. “Even a simple maintenance would not compensate for inflation,” she said.
This is not the first time that the cultural policy of the Alsatian capital has been controversial in recent months. The town hall thus announced at the end of August the closure of the city’s museums two days a week instead of one, to cope with rising energy prices. In addition, a generous donor announced at the end of September that she was giving up bequeathing real estate estimated at 5 million euros to the museums of Strasbourg, after having deplored the conditions for the conservation of works previously donated to the city.