Laure Bertrand, at the helm of Tarbes culture

Laure Bertrand in her new office at Tarbes Town Hall

What will be your first acts as cultural assistant?

I started meeting the actors. Those from the town hall services which relate to culture to understand from the inside what we do and how I, as deputy, can help them. And our external contacts, Le Parvis, the DRAC, the major associations. I really want to start by immersing myself in the local artistic and cultural ecosystem. Also learn because I have 40 years of professional experience which is not in the field of culture but which has allowed me to implement transversality and synergies. We will think about how to work better together, and how the town hall can be a point of support and coordination with partners.

During the campaign, Pascal Claverie spoke of a street culture and neighborhoods. How will this come to fruition?

There are several ideas in there. Make access to culture easier. Have an offer that is aimed at everyone, from informed audiences to those who are less so. Bring culture to audiences who do not practice it by taking culture out of museums, theaters and media libraries. It can be indoors, but we would like to go further and systematize culture in the street. Street theater, singers like Tarba en Canta who will sing in the markets. It also contributes to the liveliness of the city, to the pleasure for the people of Tarbes of moving around the city, to the pride of being in a city that is on the move. And then it can obviously help bring people to Tarbes. And in shops. The objective is also an objective of animation, tourist attractiveness and economic animation of the city.

Are culture, entertainment and the economy linked?

I think that a cultural policy is a factor of attractiveness. For companies that want to set up where their employees will have a cultural offer, in the same way as sport. Students will also choose a city and the cultural dynamism of this city is one of the criteria, as is the quality of sports equipment. Culture is a vector of attractiveness in the medium term with a view to improving the attractiveness of the city.

Isn’t animation likely to occupy the larger place of culture?

You are right animation is not culture as a whole. I am deputy in charge of culture, tourism and major events. This allows us to have a coherent vision of the whole and to think each time about a cultural activity in all these facets. Including the animation facets.

What are your major projects?

In the short term, there are measures that were in Pascal Claverie’s program and that of Pierre Lagonnelle. Free museums, the installation of an arthouse cinema in the city center, support for local culture. For large projects, we have ideas, but we will have to wait until we work on them. You heard Pascal Claverie say that he wanted the people of Tarbes to be proud of their city. Culture must contribute to being proud of this specific identity.