In the heart of Paris stands a historic theatre, the Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique. This emblematic venue for Parisian festivals has seen many adventures in recent decades. After its heyday, it fell into near-abandonment before undergoing a major overhaul a few years ago. But now it’s in the process of giving up the ghost, thanks to the very people who claim to be the staunchest defenders of ‘culture.’ Transformed into a reception centre for migrants, it is in decline and on the verge of bankruptcy. Whatever the Left may say, culture and the reception of migrants don’t mix very well.
On December 10th last year, a group of migrants, supported by one of the many immigrationist groups proliferating in Anne Hidalgo’s Paris, headed for the Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique with the intention to take up residence there. The migrants, who claimed to be ‘minors,’ numbered 250, then 300, came to squat in the theatre, forcing the establishment to close. Temporarily, they thought.
The theatre management was sympathetic to the squatters’ approach. It’s the middle of winter, it is cold, and there’s no question of throwing these migrants—whose request seems perfectly legitimate to anyone sensitive to human rights—out on the street. According to Le Figaro, while deploring “the sudden nature of this occupation”—which the prefecture has described as “illegal”—the theatre recalls “the legitimacy of the collective’s demand for a roof over their heads.” A banner emblazoned with the accusatory slogan “Housing emergency, unaccompanied minors on the streets” can be seen on the façade of this Haussmann-style theatre.
The presence of the squatters is making it impossible to hold the events scheduled at the Gaîté Lyrique. As a result, shows scheduled for the venue had to be cancelled, postponed, or rescheduled, resulting in considerable irreversible losses for the establishment, which relies on shows for 70% of its income with ‘only’ 30% coming from public subsidies. In December, David Robert, the institution’s spokesman, estimated the cost of cancelling private and public events at “several hundred thousand euros in direct losses.” Let’s face it: the famous theatre is on the verge of bankruptcy, and for the moment, there is no solution in sight.
Since the squat began, it has emerged that many of the so-called “unaccompanied minors” are over the age of eighteen, which automatically excludes them from the child welfare system. It is normally up to the owner of the premises to refer the matter to the authorities for eviction and restoration of order, but the management cannot bring itself to do so.
The Gaîté Lyrique is an old and honourable Parisian institution, where Jacques Offenbach’s operettas and Diaghilev’s Russian ballets once triumphed. But the theatre has long since succumbed to the sirens of political correctness. Two years ago, the theatre took part in ‘Refugee Day 2023,’ and last year organised a discussion with a former socialist minister under the evocative title of “Migration: an opportunity for France?” Needless to say, in the minds of the organisers, the question mark there was purely rhetorical. To add insult to injury, since November, the Gaîté had been hosting a “Fresque de la migration,” which was due to run until January 15th before it, too, was cancelled. The programme consisted of an “educational” approach designed to “deconstruct prejudices” and “redefine terms that are often incorrectly used in everyday language, particularly in the media, such as ‘refugee,’ ‘migrant’ or ‘exile.’”
Today, the management is caught in the trap of its good feelings and is proving incapable of getting out of the imbroglio into which it has voluntarily plunged itself. It’s losing money, a little more every day, until it’s time to close the doors. The Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique thus becomes a formidable metaphor for a country, France, and a capital city, Paris, once a beacon of civilisation and a model of the art of living which, for want of knowing how to organise public generosity, indiscriminately welcomes people who are digging the grave of that civilisation and that art of living. And the very people who profess all day long to defend the ‘extra soul’ that is culture in the ferocious world of globalised capitalism find themselves the first victims of their disordered philanthropy.
We could rejoice at the lesson they have been cruelly taught. But we’d be wary of doing so. In reality, it is almost certainly the city of Paris and Anne Hidalgo’s tax-funded socialist coffers that will bail out the theatre… until the next influx of migrants.
Absent the organisation of roundtables on migration, we can only advise the theatre’s administrators to delve back into classical literature and ponder Bossuet’s stainless adage: “God laughs at the prayers we make to him to avert public misfortune, when we do not oppose what is done to attract it.”
