\n\tCatherine P\u00e9gard, a former film journalist who previously worked in Nicolas Sarkozy\u2019s cabinet and headed the Ch\u00e2teau de Versailles, has been appointed France\u2019s culture minister. <\/p>\n
\n\tP\u00e9gard succeeds Rachida Dati<\/a>, who handed her resignation\u00a0to French President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> on Wednesday morning to pursue her ambition to become mayor of Paris which she described as \u201cthe battle of my life.\u201d The municipal elections are starting in two and a half weeks. <\/p>\n \n\tThe appointment of P\u00e9gard was unveiled on Thursday, hours before the start of the C\u00e9sar Awards ceremony, France\u2019s equivalent to the Oscars. <\/p>\n \n\tAfter presiding over the Chateau de Versailles for 13 years, Pegard was appointed director of cultural development at Afalula, the French agency co-managing the development of the Al-Ula heritage site in Saudi Arabia. She most recently worked as Macron\u2019s advisor on cultural affairs. <\/p>\n \n\tDati, who stayed in post for two years despite several government reshuffles, spearheaded the culture and rurality plan to promote access to culture in rural areas. She also reportedly fought to limit cuts to the culture budget which amounts to \u20ac4.2 billion \u2014 \u20ac200 million less than in 2025. Dati also led a push to include a panel on culture <\/a>during last year\u2019s AI Summit which was organized by the Elys\u00e9e Palace. <\/p>\n \n\tP\u00e9gard could be the last culture minister appointed by Macron, whose second mandate will end next year. As France battles to reduce its national debt, the film and TV industry has been concerned about potential further cuts to budgets. The National Film Board (CNC), which backs the sector, has also been criticized in light of declining box office results. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine P\u00e9gard, a former film journalist who previously worked in Nicolas Sarkozy\u2019s cabinet and headed the Ch\u00e2teau de…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[230234,34,2000,299,36,41385],"class_list":{"0":"post-791799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-catherine-pegard","9":"tag-emmanuel-macron","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-rachida-dati"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116140816996608760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}