Maintaining this system is therefore a firm commitment for the Departmental Council, even though it is faced with a very rigorous plan to return to balance. Its culture budget was cut by a third: 4.45 million euros in 2026 compared to 6.65 million euros in 2025. All subsidies whose amount was less than 1,000 euros were eliminated. And for the others, the cut is on average 50%.
“It is not necessarily the Department’s fault if festivals disappear; the State and the Region are also lowering the level of their aid.”
This serious tightening of the screw has already led the Entre-deux-Mers Open Voice festival to cancel its 2026 edition. Will other operators make the same choice? This is the whole question that arises as the Department is not expected to have regained financial balance before 2028. And it is not guaranteed that subsidies will increase again after that. Fewer resources, fewer important artists on display: will this translate into fewer spectators?
Mécénat
“It is not necessarily the Department’s fault if festivals disappear; the State and the Region are also lowering the level of their aid,” argues Martine Jardiné, the vice-president in charge of culture. “We also have to deal with the increase in housing-related aid and the increase in the number of RSA beneficiaries, for which we do not benefit from state compensation.”
Martine Jardin: supporting cultural actors “otherwise than through subsidies”. Archives SO
And find new funding. In particular through patronage. Martine Jardiné cites AG2R la Mondiale, the social protection group which is already supporting a project allowing cultural actors to intervene in medical-educational institutes. “But it could also be Maif or Crédit Mutuel.”
It is also a question of supporting said cultural actors “otherwise than through subsidies”: through training, the loan of equipment or communication. “The T’es à l’Ouest festival, in Grayan-et-l’Hôpital, it is not the 1,500 euros that we bring to it that has allowed it to offer circus, dance or music; it’s the engineering that our teams brought to it in a very short time.”
Départs non compensés
The Department is also not ruling out the question of reorganization, seeking better synergies between Iddac, its cultural agency, Biblio Gironde, the structure which supports the department’s libraries, and the departmental archives. Assuming that certain fixed-term contracts will not be renewed and that certain retirements will not be compensated.
