The French companies escorting Emmanuel Macron on his three-day state visit to Saudi Arabia don’t yet know if they’ll be leaving with any lucrative contracts in their suitcases. For the time being, France has capitalized on the only asset that the conflagration in the Middle East and Donald Trump‘s return to the White House are unlikely to compromise: culture. It is a key element in the vast societal transformation operation undertaken by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to diversify his country’s economy and burnish its disastrous human rights image. On Tuesday, December 3 – on the eve of the likely fall of Michel Barnier’s government – Culture Minister Rachida Dati and her Saudi counterpart, Prince Badr Bin Farhan Al Saoud, announced nine cultural engineering deals in fields covering archeology, cinema and photography alike.
Since February, the two ministers have met three times to relaunch the French-Saudi partnership beyond the Nabatean site of Al-Ula, the development of which was the subject of a bilateral agreement signed in 2018. “Saudi Arabia has major infrastructure and training needs, and it sees France as a centralized system giving access to a depth of resources,” a source at the French Culture Ministry said.
For 20 years now, under the leadership of Laïla Nehmé, French archaeologists have been excavating the ocher desert of Al-Ula, which was witness to a long-denied pre-Islamic past. The new agreement signed on Tuesday enables France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) to provide expertise, notably for excavations to be carried out in the new city of Qiddiya, where a giga-project dedicated to sports and leisure will be created.
Heritage sites
An agreement with France’s Operator of Cultural Heritage and Real Estate Projects (OPPIC) aims to support the renovation of Saudi Arabia’s historic palaces, including 23 royal buildings. In addition, another contract with the National Monuments Center provides support for the development of heritage sites and the implementation of an audience strategy.
The Arles’ School of Photography, in association with other French institutions, will contribute to the design and development of a photography museum due to open in Riyadh in 2027. The French National Institute of Heritage will train 600 Saudi professionals. The Grand Palais and the National Museums Group will also provide Saudi museums with their expertise in the field of boutique-bookstores. France’s National School of Industrial Creation will lend a hand in the development of the future New Arts Museum, dedicated to new technologies, due to open in an existing building in Riyadh in 2026.
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France and Saudi Arabia sign nine cultural cooperation contracts
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