No, rural France is not a cultural desert

The municipal elections are over, but a discreet conflict persists in the French countryside. It is not related to agriculture or gas prices, nor is it about healthcare. It concerns culture. Indeed, beneath the media radar, a growing tension is emerging around the question of what the cultural offerings in rural areas should be.

This latent conflict recently entered the public debate through the “Culture and Rurality” plan put forward by Rachida Dati. This plan aims to strengthen artistic offerings in rural areas and aligns with the well-established rhetoric of combating “cultural deserts.”

Behind this expression lies the idea that a part of the national territory lacks access to culture and requires increased public intervention. However, this framing of the issue is not neutral. It is based on a particular representation of culture and an implicit interpretation of rural areas as culturally deficient spaces. In other words, the question is not just about access to culture but also about defining what is considered cultural.

To understand this situation, we need to look back at the history of French cultural policies. These policies have been built around a territorial networking project aimed at spreading artistic works throughout the country. When André Malraux became Minister of Cultural Affairs in 1959, he set the goal of facilitating the encounter between “great works of humanity” and the widest possible audience, emphasizing that “culture exists not at all for people to have fun.” The creation of cultural centers was part of this ambition: to make legitimate artistic forms accessible, even if they were often distant from existing cultural practices and audience expectations.

From the 1980s onwards, despite the affirmation of a more culturally democratic approach, decentralization reinforced this model by consolidating a network of institutions such as national theaters, media libraries, museums. However, this network remains largely dominated by urban centers, leaving rural areas on the periphery. This dynamic contributes to the current interpretation in terms of “cultural deserts.”

Nevertheless, it is important to note that rural areas are not devoid of cultural practices. Community gatherings, local festivals, amateur practices, and those related to heritage all shape cultural spaces, even if they are not widely recognized by institutional actors. Public action also goes beyond the state, with many rural communities playing a central role in cultural offerings by managing facilities, supporting programs, and coordinating associative networks.

The current dynamics do not simply create a divide between legitimate culture and local practices or between urban and rural areas. Hybrid configurations are emerging, such as shared spaces, artistic collectives/residents, and the reinvention of traditional forms like agricultural fairs, regional dances, and carnivals. These events combine contemporary creation, community participation, and festive practices, sometimes in collaboration with or despite institutional frameworks.

In these spaces, culture becomes a place of negotiation and experimentation where cultural hierarchies are reshaped and local community is experienced, far from artistic concerns. Elected officials play a central role in articulating institutional, aesthetic, and community logics while navigating national policy constraints.

Behind the recurring debates on “cultural deserts,” the issue is more about framing than about a lack of culture. It is not about the absence of culture, but the challenge lies in recognizing the plurality of its forms and the diversity of its legitimacy regimes. Rural and peri-urban areas are not waiting for culture; they are producing it in ways that partially escape public action categories and centralized decision-making.