France/ In this Seine-et-Marne commune, the cultural center is trying to attract young people and families.
On Wednesday June 4, the 2025-2026 cultural season was unveiled at Villeparisis' Jacques-Prévert cultural center. Elected representatives took the opportunity to review the past year.
At the Jacques Prévert center in Villeparisis on Wednesday June 4, many people were present to discover the cultural program for the year 2025-2026. "It's a rich and varied program," confided Christine Ginguené, Deputy Mayor in charge of Culture and Twinning. And indeed, the program will include some forty shows, in keeping with the previous year's diversity.
It has to be said that 2024-2025 was a resounding success for the cultural center. I'm delighted to see how the season has gone," enthuses Frédéric Bouche, Mayor of Villeparisis. I'm delighted with the choices we've made and the direction we've taken.
"Local authorities keep culture alive
The mayor explains that the hall has maintained a 65% occupancy rate throughout the year. "This is a very good figure, because we can compare it with other community, private and municipal halls. Today, it's the local authorities that keep culture alive. Without communities, there is no culture."
The mayor continues:
Of course, we have shows where we're sure to do 100%, but we have shows where we support creation. I'm happy to see that the routes we're creating are working and starting to take off.
Frédéric Bouche, Mayor of Villeparisis
"A vital source of attraction".
Christine Ginguené follows suit. "Despite the austerity imposed by recent governments in the form of substantial cuts in subsidies, the town has maintained a high level of cultural capital. It's a major source of appeal.
The cultural councillor insists on the target audience.
We want consistency and balance in our artistic offerings. That's why we're strengthening our offer with our three flagship facilities: the conservatory, the media library and the cultural center.
Christine Ginguené, Deputy Mayor in charge of Culture and Twinning
In particular, the conservatory has been classified as a communal conservatory, and the media library is, according to the deputy mayor, "a benchmark in terms of free public reading, with over 80,000 books available".
Attracting young people
As for the cultural center, the new feature is called "lafabrique des jeunes programmateurs". To appeal to a younger audience, a dozen teenagers improvised themselves as "programmers" for a year. "The idea is to give our young people the chance to sharpen their critical and artistic senses by discovering shows and contributing to the cultural center's programming by deciding on certain choices themselves", continues the elected representative.For these budding programmers, there's only one objective: to inspire young people to take an interest in culture and come and see shows.
Increasing family audiences
One of the aims of this varied programming is to diversify the audience, particularly by reaching out to families and children. "Over the past year, families and young people have been numerous, with 21,000 tickets sold. Both the "Les petits moments famille " festival and the "BAB" have aroused great interest among young people.
Finally, Christine Ginguené insists on the "hors les murs" proposals, "so that the arts come to you in every neighborhood, notably with the future edition of the Primo festival, dedicated to street arts".
The two councillors also pointed out that the seats in the auditorium, which were due to be changed before summer 2025, will only be modified during the summer period, with a slight delay. "I thought that the public procurement timeframe would allow us to have the new seats before June. The choices have been made, but they'll be ready for the start of the new school year in September", concludes the mayor.
Source: actu.fr/ile-de-france/
