“No minister of culture, for a long time, has as many tricks up his sleeve as Rima Abdul-Malak”

Lummer is rarely the season of sore questions for culture. We store them under the carpet until September. The spirit is festive and fun. The ministers participate in this euphoria, run from festival to festival, shake hands with a smile on their face and listen to the creators. In 2015, President François Hollande advised novice Fleur Pellerin: “Tell them it’s good, it’s beautiful. They want to be loved. »

The new Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, is also making her tour of France. On June 25, she attended the Guns N’Roses concert at the Hellfest metal festival. The next day, she cheered in the crowd for her friend the singer -M- at Solidays. A photo shows her with her arm raised and screaming like a fan. The image reflects its fresh side, which contrasts with its predecessors, often stiff as stakes.

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At 43, Rima Abdul-Malak is a total unknown to the public and a more than familiar figure in the world of creation. A number of articles contribute to bridging the gap, for example a lengthy interview on the website of the Point, the 5 of July. At this level, it is a confession: her dual Franco-Lebanese nationality, Beirut at war which she left at the age of 10, her studies in Lyon, her CV, her leftist values, her appetite for poetry … The portraits are benevolent, including that of the chained duckand 1^is June.

Rima Abdul-Malak has assets. She is passionate about culture, which is normal. She masters the machine and its cogs and that’s rarer. Above all, she has rendered an important service to Emmanuel Macron, whose adviser she was from 2019. When she joins him, the president is in a cultural breakdown. The Covid-19 pandemic is bleeding the sector, its actors denounce a lack of love and money, the Culture Pass is an expensive fiasco – a checkbook spent by young people to buy manga –, the Minister of Culture of so, Franck Riester, is dull. Macron plague: “I miss a Lang. »

Rima Abdul-Malak offers him a battery of actions that allow him to regain control, the most bewildering of which is a meeting broadcast on the Internet, in May 2020, where the president, in shirt sleeves in the midst of creators, promises them billion euros and urges them to “ride the tiger”.

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In The Musician’s Letter of May 5, 2020, Antoine Pecqueur dares this title: “The other Minister of Culture”. Then takes shape around her a ball of courtiers who call her « Rima »for convenience or to signify connivance. “I saw Rima. “Rima thinks…” His supporters are another strength. Her mentor is the former socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, whom she advised when the city was a stimulating cultural hive. Elisabeth Borne appreciates it. She has the confidence of Macron, whom she has known since the beginning of the 2010s. Jack Lang speaks well of her, which can be useful.

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