Around the world: France’s new popular music diplomacy

ABSTRACT

Music, and especially popular music, plays a prominent role in the race for international soft power, and is now recognised as an important factor for the study of international relations. This paper endeavours to present and examine contemporary French music diplomacy, that is the ways in which French institutions abroad use and diffuse music in general, and specifically popular music, to gain international influence, and which is still an unexplored area of research. In this context, it will identify the shift from a focus on elite culture towards an economic, neoliberal approach designed not only to export music ‘made in France’, but also to convey a new image of France on the international stage, a modernised ‘nation brand’ based, among other things, on its ‘trendy’ music. To this end, the paper first introduces the role of music in general and of popular music in particular in diplomatic contexts. Then, it provides a brief survey of the public agencies involved in the promotion of French music abroad and their different actions and strategies. Finally, it discusses the diplomatic, commercial and symbolic issues at stake in these policies and how they interplay with one another, especially in relation to nation branding and French soft power priorities.

RÉSUMÉ

La musique, et notamment la musique populaire, a acquis un rôle proéminent dans la course pour le ‘soft power’ international. Cet article vise précisément à présenter la diplomatie française actuelle liée à la musique en général et à la musique populaire en particulier, à savoir, les efforts du réseau extérieur français pour diffuser et promouvoir ce type de musique afin d’accroître l’influence et l’attractivité de la France à l’étranger. En effet, en dépit de l’importance de la musique dans l’étude des relations internationales, la diplomatie musicale française actuelle n’a pas fait l’objet de recherches systématiques à ce jour. Le travail vise ainsi à décrire son évolution, d’une diplomatie basée sur la culture d’élite vers une approche économiciste, néolibérale, destinée à vendre la musique ‘made in France’ mais aussi à donner une image nouvelle de la France sur la sphère internationale, projetant une nouvelle ‘nation brand’ (marque de pays), moderne, basée, entre autres, sur ses musiques actuelles. A cet effet, j’introduirai en premier le rôle de la musique, et notamment de la musique populaire, dans les contextes diplomatiques. Ensuite, je décrirai la diplomatie musicale française en présentant brièvement les institutions impliquées dans sa diffusion et sa promotion à l’étranger ainsi que leurs différentes actions et leurs stratégies. Enfin, j’analyserai les enjeux diplomatiques, économiques et symboliques de cette politique extérieure notamment en rapport avec la marque pays et les priorités du soft power français.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Dr. Stuart Green and Professor David Looseley for their valuable comments and their help in reviewing this article. Thank you also to Professor Duncan Wheeler for the last minute sentence.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. See Fosler-Lussier (2012), Gienow-Hecht (2012), Von Eschen (2006).

2. See the list provided by the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/index.php?en_acts-of-music-as-cultural-diplomacy, and also the list.

3. See two recent academic events on the subject: ‘Sons et voix de la scène internationale: comprendre les diplomaties musicales’, international conference organised by Sciences Po, Paris, April 2016; ‘Popular music and Public Diplomacy’, international conference organised by University of Dortmund, on November 2015.

4. Among the rich bibliography on international relations and music, other than the aforementioned references, the special issues of Relations Internationales (2013) should be noticed as well as recent publications by Ramel (2018) and by Ramel and Prévost-Thomas (2018).

5. Popular music can be characterised as the product of an industry, consumed, actively or passively by large populations, and based on recording techniques and not on musical score. Thus, it is a vast and complex category which can refer to very different musical styles including electronica, salsa, rap and hard rock. In English, this nomenclature and classification have been widely accepted both in everyday use and in academia. Popular music has been the object of Popular Music Studies, an academic discipline known as such since the 1980s. For an introduction to Popular Music Studies see Bennett, Shank and Toynbee 2005. French Popular Music Studies started developing later but the field has now become established. For an introduction to French Popular Music Studies, see Looseley (2003) and more recently Guibert and Rudent (2018).

6. The programme also included rock-and-roll, blues and folk ambassadors (Fosler-Lussier 2015, 143–165).

7. In French, the expression ‘popular music’ can be translated by ‘musiques actuelles’, which is the official nomenclature used by the Ministère de la Culture et le Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères. This nomenclature shows that French institutions are still reluctant to translate the concept directly from the English language. This reveals also a will to set French popular music apart from globalised popular music, in what can be seen as a form of cultural protectionism or cultural exceptionalism. However, the term ‘musiques populaires’ is also used by French academics. See, for instance, Volume! La revue des musiques populaires, one of the main publications in the field in France for more than a decade now.

8. David Looseley has extensively explored the discourses attached to French popular music, namely chanson, often associated with the figure of the ACI (auteur-compositeur-interprète), epitomised by the famous trio Brel, Brassens, Ferré, one which is associated with the attributes of the ‘auteur’, a true artist, genuinely French, as opposed to mere entertaining music imports. See, for instance Looseley (2013) and Looseley (2018).

9. Modernisation and internationalisation are key concepts in Macron’s programme for the general election in 2017. The complete programme is available here: https://storage.googleapis.com/en-marche-fr/COMMUNICATION/Programme-Emmanuel-Macron.pdf .

10. Most French press covered the event, noticing its ‘novelty’ and ‘cool’ attitude but also the awkwardness of the situation. See for example: http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/le-scan/2018/06/22/25001-20180622ARTFIG00066-un-concert-de-musique-electronique-a-l-elysee.php.

11. The performance is accessible here: http://www.lemonde.fr/international/video/2017/07/14/14-juillet-la-fanfare-reprend-daft-punk-sous-les-yeux-amuses-de-macron-et-meduses-de-trump_5160804_3210.html.

12. See Poirrier’s compendium and comments on French cultural policies 2016. In English, see the excellent reader compiled by Jeremy Ahearne (2002). David Looseley (1995) provides an insightful analysis on the cultural policy debate in France.

13. See Ahearne (2014).

14. The cultural and creative sectors represent directly 43 billion euros, that is 2.3% of French economy, while their indirect weight has been estimated at 87 billion euros (Picard 2017).

15. Such is the case of Francecreative, an association of French cultural and creative agents which stresses the value of culture in the economy and asks for governmental support.

16. The term ‘rayonnement’, literally ‘radiation’, is now used with the term ‘influence’, which has less patronising connotations. The official term for referring to soft power diplomacy is nowadays ‘diplomatie d’influence’, ‘diplomacy of influence’.

17. French cultural hegemony and its ‘global’ prestige should be questioned or at least nuanced when it comes to French former colonies.

18. See https://softpower30.com/country/france/. Whether this is accurate or not, President Macron’s role in France’s new image and nation branding is undeniable.

19. For a review on French cultural diplomacy, see Lane (2016): 15–26.

20. As early as 1920, a rapport for French Senate identifies culture and science as a strong weapon for creating international influence. See Haize (2013): 1.

21. My translation: ‘Musique, cinéma, littérature, arts graphiques constituent, dans une économie globalisée, un véritable soft power français, pour nos exportations, notre influence’ (in Ernst&Young 2015).

22. In the 1990s and in 2000s, the GATT and WTO negotiations exemplify the firm defence of French cultural industries’ interests by French governments (Buchsbaum 2006).

23. Website of the MEAE https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/the-ministry-and-its-network/ministry-for-europe-and-foreign-affairs-implementing-agencies/.

24. I tried unsuccessfully to interview Olivier Delpoux, the person responsible for popular music and jazz at the IF. When I contacted the IF in London about their activities related to music, they redirected me directly to the Bureau Export, a semi-public body which will be presented in the next section. My last attempt to interview the responsible for ‘Pôle spectacle vivant et musiques’ (January 2019) has also been unsuccessful. I ignore the reasons behind this institutional silence, and I can only guess it might be due to a lack of interest in disseminating the IF’s work on the field, and a tendency to keep state and diplomatic affairs hidden from the public.

25. Annual reports are accessible online: http://www.institutfrancais.com/fr/rapport-d-activite.

26. For instance, Cargo 92, a project financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the City of Nantes, in which several modern theatre companies and a popular music band (La Mano Negra) toured the Americas following Christophe Coulomb’s first voyage.

27. The interview was conducted in February 2016 by Michael Spanu in the context of his doctorate research. He kindly shared it with me for the purposes of this article. Parts of this interview are published in his PhD dissertation (Spanu 2017).

28. See the latest ‘Projet annuel de performances’ for the ‘Programme 185ʹ, https://www.performance-publique.budget.gouv.fr/sites/performance_publique/files/farandole/ressources/2018/pap/pdf/DBGPGMPGM185.pdf.

29. Institut Français website: http://www.institutfrancais.com/en/new-music-and-jazz.

30. See the Contrat d’Objectifs et de Moyens de l’Institut Français pour la période 2017–2019, Objectif 1.1.4. https://www.senat.fr/rap/r16-419/r16-419-annexe.pdf.

31. For example, French Miracle Tour in Asia showcasing French electronic artists in seven countries in Asia (http://www.frenchmiracle.com/). Other examples include the international tour provided for the winners of Les InrocksLab contest for young music artists, with the collaboration of the magazine Les Inrocks and the support to winners of FAIR contest on their international tour, a structure to boost careers and professionalisation in popular music.

32. The Workshop gathered professionals from the music industry and the diplomatic sector as well as scholars. All the presentations are available here: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/centres-groups/doc/european-popular-musics.

33. Vandepoorter was actually the person responsible for most events and actions regarding French music in the UK because the IF had handed over to the BE in London all its responsibilities in this respect.

34. For example, French rapper Oxmo Pucino, during his residence in Bogota worked with Colombian musicians and released an album as a result of this collaboration.

35. See, for instance, the festival So Frenchy so Chic, sponsored by Renault, in Australia, featuring French pop artists and food: https://www.sofrenchysochic.com/melbourne/.

36. The national stations and channels (France Télévisions and Radio France), because they can now be accessed via internet potentially everywhere, have multiplied the offer of French media worldwide.

37. The history of RFI goes hand in hand with that of colonisation and decolonisation.

38. For its present status and its future challenge in francophone African countries, see Fiedler and Frère (2016).

39. I did ask Françaix if this was the actual term he wanted to use, and he confirmed it, because in his view it described this music as opposed to Western, ‘cold’, musics.

40. RFI’s main mission still is the diffusion of French culture in the world: ‘Une offre de services de radio en français et en langues étrangères destinés en particulier aux auditoires étrangers, y compris ceux résidant en France, ainsi qu’aux Français résidant à l’étranger, chargés de contribuer à la diffusion de la culture française et d’assurer une mission d’information relative à l’actualité française, européenne et internationale’. Décret n° 2012–85 du 25 janvier 2012, accessible online: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000025199485&dateTexte=20181125 .

41. Jean-Jacques Garnier, director of the Institut Français in Tokyo, asserts this very clearly in an interview quoted by Spanu in his thesis: ‘the main goal is, however, in the realm of cultural industries, whether books, music, cinema, and even video-games, to gain more market shares for French products in the target country’ (‘le but du jeu, quand même, dans le domaine des industries culturelles, qu’elles soient livre, musique, cinéma et même jeux vidéo, si on les rajoute, ça doit déboucher sur des augmentations des parts de marchés des produits français dans le pays’ Jean 2013 as quoted in Spanu (2017): 97.

42. See the ‘Contrat d’Objectifs et de Moyens pour l’Institut Français’, ibid. p. 3.

43. Carla Bruni’s latest album is precisely titled French Touch (2017). Certified ‘Platine’ in the international market, all songs are cover versions of ‘classical’ international pop hits. Here, the only Frenchness is that of the singer.

44. This would lead us to the complex question of national identity and ‘nationality’ in music, to which I can only refer to very briefly. For more on this subject, see Spanu (2017).

45. Obviously, this is a one-sided view on France values, which does not take into account the ‘shadows’ of French Republic.

46. In his comparative study of French and British popular culture policies, Looseley shows that there is no stark opposition between France and Great Britain in that respect (Looseley 2011).

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Leverhulme Trust.