It is hard to believe that it is nearly a year since the horrendous Paris attacks led to the cancellation of half of Nice’s Manca Festival programme in November 2015. Since then the capital of the French Riviera has had to endure a terrorist incident of its own and, in the aftermath, an unpleasant level of community tension, most obviously expressed in the bizarre banning and unbanning of an apparently innocuous item of beachwear known as the ‘burkini.’
Seeing the recently published programme for the 2016 Manca Festival somehow stuck me, then, as a ray of hope. No matter the political tension we are experiencing in Europe, be it the result of mass migration, Islamic terrorism or Brexit, the artistic community continues to express itself, if anything emboldened by difficult times.
Or so I thought. It turns out that when a country experiences difficult times it has a direct impact on the art it produces. And in France budget cuts have led, once again, to the emasculation of the Manca Festival programme. It’s not a complete disaster—we still have nine decent events to look forward to—but the organising committee has had, apparently at the last minute, to drop their planned theme and rein in the number of concerts.
If I talk about impoverishment, those who are in the UK (I am not), or hold the UK dear (I do), will understand what I mean. It is all very well to talk about counter-cultural opportunities presented by Brexit, but these will be few and far between if the pot of money available to us shrinks. The existence of art has always depended on surplus. And, generally, the more surplus the better, since it means more free time, free energy and money for art. We cannot, therefore, pretend that the situation doesn’t matter.
It would be possible, of course, to point to the economic situation here in France (and, indeed, elsewhere on the Continent) and say that, well, being part of the EU is not helping so much. I think many would agree that the EU is, on many levels, a flawed organisation. As such I can, indeed, appreciate how fair-minded people might want to leave it. Given we have made this decision, however, it seems to be blindingly obvious that we should do this in a way that is least financially ruinous to our country and has the chance of healing some of the wounds opened up in our society. The approach being pursued by the UK government will not, I fear, achieve this—it appears to be opting for the most deleterious and extreme form of Brexit.
Theresa May tells us that ‘We are all Brexiters now.’ If this is, indeed, the case it means that the extremes no longer own the debate. As such, it is up to us all to make our views heard before it is too late.