The government wants libraries open in the evening and on Sundays

READING Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak has not quantified her “library plan”, but will accompany it with a poster campaign and audiovisual

Nantes, April 2019 The Jacques Demy media library in Nantes — Julie Urbach/20 Minutes

The government wants to encourage public libraries to do so. extend their opening hours to evenings and Sundays, to encourage the French to visit. to come back to it, announced Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak on Wednesday. “We have put in place a library plan. We amplify it, to continue to grow. support these places,” said the minister, interviewed on France Info.

She did not encrypt it. the budget for this plan, but it must be accompanied by a poster and audiovisual campaign. And the Ministry of Culture, which lists 15,500 “libraries and reading points” in France, recalled to the AFP having “brought’ more than 120 million euros to local authorities for their libraries in 2022.

A promise from candidate Macron in 2017

Some 300 libraries are offering events on Wednesday to attract visitors. the inhabitants again. Asked about the possibility of to bring in young people who have moved away from reading, Abdul Malak said he trusts in those who know them. «The actors on the ground know how to do it: the associations, the librarians, the artists, who are in these neighborhoods and who know how to go and talk to people. these young people,” she said.

“It’s also by opening the libraries more. The more a library is open in the evening, on Sunday, the more opportunities these young people will have to find spaces for meetings, calm, work, reading, music,” she added. . President Emmanuel Macron had pleaded; in favor of extending opening hours from the presidential campaign for 2017.

Collateral victims during the riots

Some libraries were destroyed. collateral victims of the riots which followed the death at the end of June in Nanterre de Nahel M., killed; by a police officer 17 years.

« There have been around fifty libraries which have been renovated. burned, attacked, vandalized during the urban violence at the beginning of summer. And seeing images of books going up in smoke in 2023, &cdil;it recalls the worst pages of our history, it’s intolerable ” Abdul Malak.

“ I don’t think they targeted particularly libraries, that they absolutely wanted to burn books. “It was blind anger in a surge of violence, and the libraries were in their way,” she reasoned.