The House of Writers and Literature is at risk of bankruptcy

This is one of the paradoxes of the government's policy on reading. Elisabeth Borne, Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research, and Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture, will launch the "This Summer I Read" initiative on Monday, June 2, which aims to encourage reading among young people in a context of overexposure to screens and a lack of interest in reading.

The two ministers reaffirm that "young people spend ten times more time on screens than reading books for leisure." And point out that, " at the start of the 2024 school year, only 55% of CM2 pupils had mastered the comprehension of a read text." This does not prevent them from letting the Maison des écrivains et de la littérature (MEL), the leading employer of writers in France in terms of artistic and cultural education, run into bankruptcy.

Created by Jack Lang in 1986, this association, governed by the 1901 law and initially an offshoot of the National Book Center, allows 30,000 students to meet nearly 300 writers each year. They come to talk about their profession in primary and secondary school classes, and have so far met more than 10,000 students in universities throughout France. They also meet abroad, in Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, and the United Kingdom. The MEL also offers a major resource and documentation center, listing writers' scholarships and residencies, among other things. Until 2024, it organized literary festivals and events, such as the Enjeux contemporains meetings and the Saint-Brévin-les-pins Youth Literature and Illustration Festival (Loire-Atlantique). Its mission is to advocate for writers, monitor their working conditions, and disseminate their works.

But the organization has seen its subsidies melt like snow in the sun. The Ministry of Culture has financially suffocated it by reducing its subsidies from €500,000 in 2023 to €350,000 in 2024, and €200,000 this year, a 60% reduction. And yet, these subsidies were only released at the beginning of April, "when we no longer knew how to pay the association's seven salaries," explains Sylvie Gouttebaron, director of the MEL since 2005.

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