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Former French Minister of Culture Jacques Lange (84 years old) was re-elected today, Wednesday, as president of the Arab World Institute for the fourth time. The institute is a cultural center and diplomatic front that Lange has run since 2013 and is located on the bank of the Seine River in Paris.
The Institute’s Board of Directors – which was established in 1987 as a result of a partnership between France and the Arab League countries – said in a statement that this decision was unanimously approved, after months of speculation, stressing that “President Emmanuel Macron thus confirmed his confidence in Jack Lang.”
Lang is known for his positions that are open to Arab culture and supportive of the Palestinian people’s right to independence and the establishment of their state. In a previous interview, Lang said: Arabic “A universal language, the language of the Qur’an, and the language of a great civilization. France also has great and historical relations with the Arab world, and this matter requires taking care of the Arabic language and teaching it to our children in France.”
Added in Meeting him With Al Jazeera Net, “I am proud that the institute attaches great importance to the Arabic language and teaching it to children and adults through a high-quality educational program,” considering that “the Islamic religion is a religion of tolerance and coexistence, and the French government must preserve and preserve the places of worship for Muslims, protect them, and provide them with favorable conditions to carry out their work.” “They perform their rituals in good conditions.”
The statute of the Arab World Institute does not stipulate a specific age or number of terms for its presidency, unlike other cultural institutions.
Lang served as Minister of Culture between 1981 and 1986, then between 1988 and 1993, then added to his duties the education portfolio in the ministry between 1991 and 1993, before devoting himself full time to education between 2000 and 2002. But last June he failed to maintain his parliamentary seat.
Arab art in the West
Following his victory, Jack Lang told Agence France-Presse that he has the “ambition” to make the institute “the most important museum of modern and contemporary Arab art in the West, while remaining true to its basic mission, which is to discover Arab history, language and culture.”
Lang will seek to “enhance the transmission of exhibitions and artworks in France and abroad” based on an art donation from the Lebanese art collector Claude Le Mans in 2018, which allowed the institute’s museum to acquire more than 1,800 works and masterpieces.
On the other hand, the French Ministry of Culture provided an exceptional grant of 6 million euros, which is supposed to contribute to the completion of maintenance work at the museum and the institute to support its limited budget of 26 million euros. However, the institute – affiliated with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs – does not compete with the major Parisian museums known for their huge budgets.
Jack Lang – who was chosen by former President François Hollande to succeed his predecessor as head of the institute, Renaud Muselier – worked to support an institution that was declining, relying on the establishment of dynamic, profitable exhibitions, policy and sponsorship, according to the Agence France-Presse.
In 2017, Saudi Arabia announced that it would contribute to modernizing the institution with an amount of 5 million euros.
In terms of public participation, attendance and the number of visitors exceeded 600,000 people in 2022, and the institute is betting on an “increase of approximately 15%” for the year 2023.
