2023-12-22 11:17:52
Jack Lang, president of the Arab World Institute (IMA) and former French minister of culture, in his office at the IMA, March 10, 2016, in Paris. JOËL SAGET/AFP
Unbreakable Jack Lang. The former minister of culture was reappointed for the third time in a row as president of the Arab World Institute (IMA), a position he has held since 2013, during the council meeting on Wednesday, December 20. of administration of the institute.
Read the portrait: Article reserved for our subscribers Jack Lang, like a pasha at the Arab World Institute
“It’s an illness, I don’t know how to rest”says, coquettishly, the octogenarian, detailing the list of exhibitions in preparation, from “Arabofuturism”, in 2024 to “Cleopatra, stateswoman”, in 2025. “We will continue to invent and [à] instill enthusiasm, we believe in it, we have the confidence of intellectuals and [des] creators of the Arab world »he adds, having just returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia.
Several figures in French diplomacy had expressed their interest in the position: the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, appointed head of Afalula, the French agency responsible for the development of the Al- Ula in Saudi Arabia; the former ambassador to Algeria, François Gouyette, and the current interministerial delegate ambassador to the Mediterranean, Karim Amellal. But Jack Lang got the better of all these competitors.
Read the story: Article reserved for our subscribers At the Arab World Institute, the silent battle for the presidency between Jack Lang and Jean-Yves Le Drian
“This will seem strange to you, I didn’t do anythinghe assures, small-town. I did not take any particular steps with Emmanuel Macron, other than sending him a little note a few weeks ago to tell him that I still wanted to stay as president. » The two men regularly meet during the official visits of heads of state to the Elysée, where Jack Lang is invariably invited. Emmanuel Macron took it several times in his luggage during official trips to the Arab world.
No age limit
During the board meeting, the director of the North Africa and Middle East department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anne Grillo, therefore proposed the renewal of Jack Lang for three years. It was unanimously approved by the board of directors, which is made up of seven Arab ambassadors and seven personalities appointed by the Quai d’Orsay. Unlike other cultural institutions, the presidency of the IMA is not subject to any age limit or number of mandates.
The rest of the meeting was less consensual. Arab ambassadors expected the newly re-elected president to fill the post of director general of the IMA. This position, which the institute’s statutes reserve for an Arab personality, has been vacant for a year, the ambassadors having long disagreed on the successor to be given to the Saudi literature professor Mojeb Al-Zahrani, who left in December 2022.
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