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Déplacement à Lille de Georges MOTHRON avec la mission Burqa
Faut-il une loi sur le voile intégral ? Jeudi8 octobre, Georges MOTHRON, Vice-Président de la mission parlementaire s’estrendu à Lille avec les autres membres de la mission dans le cadre desconsultations nationales sur la nécessité ou non de légiférer sur la Burqa. Les associations et lesreprésentants du culte musulman ont été rencontrés. Les avis sont partagés. Les uns invoquent comme FaridaBoumedjeria, présidente de l'association culturelle relationnelle et ententeAmana, la liberté de culte et la liberté de s'habiller comme on l'entend. Etprécisent par ailleurs que le nombre de femmes portant le voile intégral esttrès limité. D'autres disent comme Ouramdane Khacer, président de l'associationAmitié Europe dit vouloir défendre la laïcité et combattre lecommunautarisme et le prosélytisme religieux. Georges MOTHRON va poursuivre avec ses collègues les consultations dans toute la France dans les jours et semaines qui viennent.
UNESCO
Matthew Campbell, Paris
In an initiative that will delight fans of the impressionists, a campaign is being launched to preserve the landscapes they painted along the banks of Seine as a world treasure.
Claude Monet might not recognise them, but if Georges Mothron, a conservative MP, gets his way, the places that inspired him on the outskirts of Paris will one day join the Acropolis and the Great Wall of China on the “protected” list of Unesco’s world heritage sites.
It could be a hard sell. Argenteuil, the town where Monet lived and painted for seven years in the 19th century, is today in the heart of the concrete-encrusted Parisian banlieues, evocative less of art than crime, unemployment and immigrant riots.
“The heritage of the French impressionists, sadly, is a bit hidden these days,” said Mothron last week. “Japanese and American tourists often come to Argenteuil hoping to see where they painted. It is not a pleasant experience for them. They leave disappointed.” Besides Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caille-botte, Edouard Manet and Alfred Sisley also painted in Argenteuil which, at the end of the 19th century, was popular with boating parties from Paris and famous for its white figs and asparagus.
Monet’s sojourn was particularly creative: he produced a series of river scenes, highlighting yachts and bridges, including the railway bridge, part of which still exists today. He also painted the main square and the Rue Saint-Denis.
Putting such places under the wing of Unesco would help to improve Argenteuil’s standing, thinks Mothron. This would no doubt increase his popularity among the 104,000 inhabitants, who are fed up with the town’s image.
Known to museum-goers worldwide through the dappled works of the impressionists, Argenteuil evokes to many French people a speech made by President Nicolas Sarkozy when he was interior minister about ridding the suburbs of racaille, or scum, a reference to members of street gangs.
This was considered the spark for riots that erupted two days later, rapidly spreading all over the country.
“We are routinely presented as some sort of ‘Zululand’,” Philippe Doucet, the mayor, complained last week, adding that Argenteuil was associated only with the “dalle”, a vast cement plaza in an immigrant district where Sarkozy made his speech. It is ringed by tower blocks studded with satellite dishes for Arabic television.
“We want to be proud of our town,” said Doucet, a socialist, who approves of Mothron’s campaign. “It’s an identity thing,” he added. “If more British, Japanese and American tourists come here, it will be for the best.” He acknowledged, however, the difficult image problem: “There’s a lot of work to be done to make Argenteuil more attractive to tourists.”
For decades Unesco, which is based in Paris, has listed sites from the Kasbah in Algiers to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which it helps to protect through careful monitoring.
In 2003 the agency adopted a convention to safeguard “the intangible cultural heritage” and to preserve “oral traditions and expressions” and “performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events”, prompting Sarkozy to apply for French cooking to be listed under the scheme. Champagne makers are also asking for recognition.
Mothron said he was inspired by the mayor of Le Havre, who has managed to get the northern town’s postwar architecture listed. He would like to extend the scheme to include impressionist landscapes all over France. “There should be impressionist tours for people to go on,” he said.
Last week the Christmas lights were up but there was little sign of any tourism in Argenteuil.
“We’re not really part of the circuit,” said Beatrice Bonnet,a cafe owner. “A German and his wife once asked me about the impressionists. I wasn’t much help. I’m useless at art.”
Mothron claimed that the riverbank had changed little from Monet’s day in that there were still trees planted there, even if one of the bridges he painted had been destroyed by the Prussians in 1870.
The painting was almost destroyed, too, when youths broke into the Musée d’Orsay in Paris last year and one of them punched a hole in the canvas. It was quickly repaired.