Pave: More Frenchness, SVP: CW Line Dancing

Le jour 382 de Sarko

If we accept the current arguments put forward by our American friends in particular, there would very quickly be one form of cultural expression. Our American friends...say that countries can’t provide financial support for their own culture, literature, cinema or media because it distorts the market. And that therefore prevents the American culture – I am using America as an example but one could quote others [for example, Anglo-Saxon culture and, euh, the culture of the United States] – from developing as it should. That argument is tantamount to all cultural expression being stifled in favour of only the American culture. ... It’s true that if we ended up in a world where there was only one language, that would mean only one culture [for examples, the indistinguishable cultures of America, Britain, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong -- or the homogenous cultural lump of the Francophonie for that matter], and all the rest would disappear which would be a real ecological disaster.

Then-Jack, Now Ex-Jack,
entertaining the Vietnamese by beating down
the straw man of American culture
HANOI October 7, 2004 (French Embassy UK)

Any high school debate club that makes the state regionals could demolish these weak arguments and stupid pronouncements.

Jack argues money, which is a phony argument. Modern state funding does not meaningfully impact culture. Vibrant cultures are extravagant and adventurous. The state is cheap and risk adverse. "Culture" funding is little more than jobs programs for a privileged few. The argument Then-Jack, Now Ex-Jack cannot argue is competition.

If French culture were competitive, ascendant -- welcoming, dynamic, inventive, appealing -- Jack would not be arguing for fencing off world cultures from French influence. [Pause.] But French culture is moribund and Jack is as phony as his cultural pieties. That France argues for cultural protections is a prima facie indication of French culture's faint appeal.

So if you cannot sufficiently protect your own unattractive culture, the next best thing is to regulate the attractions of interloping cultures.

OUI-HA! FRANCE BRINGS LINE DANCING CRAZE
UNDER STATE CONTROL

PARIS May 31, 2008 (Times Online) - Now [American] country and western [and here] has become so big in France that the country's bureaucrats have decided to bring the craze under state control.

The French administration has moved to create an official country dancing diploma as part of a drive to regulate the fad. Authorised instructors who have been on publicly funded training courses will be put in charge of line dancing lessons and balls.

The rules, which come into force next year, come after the rapid spread of country and western in France, where an estimated 100,000 people line dance several times a week. Jean Chauveau, the chairman of the country section of the French Dance Federation:

It's growing at a crazy rate. There are thousands of clubs and more are springing up all the time.

Village associations boast dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of members; competitions are flourishing, and a country music festival is expected to draw 150,000 people this summer. Mr Chauveau:

Britain caught the line dancing bug a long time before us, but now we are really going for it. It's complete madness here.

In a peculiarly Gallic approach to the phenomenon, French civil servants say line dancing should be submitted to the same rules as sports such as football and rugby. This means imposing training courses for line dancing teachers and a state-approved diploma for anyone who wants to give lessons or run clubs.

Amateur instructors will have to take 200 hours of training under the new rules. Professionals will get 600 hours, including such subjects as line dancing techniques, “the mechanics of the human body” and the English (or at least Texan) language. They will also learn how to teach line dancing to the elderly.

The cost of the courses, about €2,000 (£1,570) for the professionals and €500 for the amateurs, will be largely met by taxpayers. Mr Chauveau said the regulations highlighted the French state's obsessive desire to organise all public activity. Mr Chauveau:

France is the only country in Europe apart from Greece where sport is controlled through the state. Line dancing is now considered a sport, so it is being controlled, too.

[Hat tip: Carine]

Yes, well, that should kill it off for good.

PFFT (What is this?): Expert French regulation of American cultural attraction 0 | Spoiling all the fun 5 | Rayonnement français 0