Culture: by what right?

CEO of the Fundação Casa da Música
Nuno Azevedo is, since January 2006, member of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive of the Fundação Casa da Música, in Porto. His main interests lie in the areas of cultural management, strategic planning and skills development. He also serves on the board of the Fundação Portugal-África where he oversees development projects in Portuguese speaking Africa, in the areas of Education and Agriculture. He served on the board of Fundação Serralves - Portugal's leading contemporary art museum, and on the board of Porto, Organisation responsible of the cultural and urban renewal programme of the Porto 2001 European Capital of Culture.

Director of the Cité de la musique
Laurent Bayle was born in 1951. Former Political Sciences student, he started his career in 1976 as an assistant director of the théâtre de l\'Est in Lyons. Then he became general director of the Atelier lyrique du Rhin, from 1978 until 1982. That same year, Laurent Bayle founded the Musica festival in Strasbourg, dedicated to contemporary music, which he led until 1986, year of his nomination at the artistic direction of the IRCAM (Music and acoustic research and coordination institute). As a true management artist, he succeeded Pierre Boulez at the head of this institution, in 1992. In 2001, he took the direction of the Cité de la Musique and reorganised its activities and programme. Since 2005, Laurent Bayle has also been running the Salle Pleyel. Since 2007, he has also been at the head of the Philharmonie association in Paris, in charge of the project of the construction of the symphonic auditorium due to open in 2013.

Head of the Prisons International Observatory
François Bès has been a permanent member of the French section of the IOP since 1997 and is in charge of the prison-commission of Act Up Paris (an association for HIV prevention). From 1995 to 1997 he worked at the International Observatory of Prisons in France, an association who fights for the respect of prisoners everywhere in the world. He then became national Coordinator of the health access to prisoners. Member of the group experts-prison of Sidaction since 2006, he became coordinator for the Paris-Île-de-France region and was in charge of the achievement of the work of the OIP in the overseas departments and territories of France.

General Director ACSÉ
Born in 1959, Rémi Frentz studied at the École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, the Paris Institute of Political Studies (IEP) then at the National School of Administration. Between 1987 to 1991, he worked as a magistrate at the National Court of Audit. At the same time, he was an associate professor at the IEP and legal and financial advisor at the National Industrial Property institute. From 1991 to 1994 he served as political advisor for the French embassy in Cairo. Until 1999, he was operations manager at the commissionership for the reform of the State, then at the cross-ministerial commission for the reform of the State. Prosecutor until 2007, then prosecutor at the Court of Audit
until 2009. On November 7th 2009 he was appointed by the French president at the head of the National Agency for Social cohesion and Equal opportunities (ACSÉ).

Director of the cultural affairs of the French National Library
Thierry Grillet is the director of the cultural affairs of the French National Library (BnF). Associate professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, he collaborates to many newspapers and publications. Able to write on many different subjects, he has published several articles on the status of culture and has written many essays on photography. He has recently published a novel, La tour des Temps, a thriller taking place inside the BnF.

Chairman of the Rencontres d'Arles
Jean-Noël Jeanneney was born in 1942 in Grenoble. He has always organised his research, political responsibilities and personal interests, according to his vocation as an historian. Specialised in political and media history, he studied the evolution of the press, radio and television. He was made president of Radio France in 1982, then president of the celebration of the Bicentenary of the French Revolution. In the 90s, he was secretary of State twice during the second mandate of François Mitterrand. In 2002, he became president of the French National Library. There he fought for the creation of a European digital library. Jean-Noël Jeanneney is the radio host of the programme Concordance des Temps on France Culture, shedding an historiographic look on the news. In 2009, he succeeded François Barré as chairman of the Rencontres d'Arles.

Head of a Multimedia Resource Centre in the Beaumettes prison, Marseilles
Dominique Tourmentine was a literature teacher in Paris for seven years and an actress at the Risouris theatre for two years before embracing a career as a journalist. She worked for the press, the radio and television, where she created the show Hebdo minots, which was conceived and managed by children and teenagers. She worked with Jacques Bonnadier at Méridiennes and Estivales, cultural programmes dealing with underexposed regional events. She also participated in the show L'Âme de fond. After a movie shot at the Baumettes prison in Marseilles, she discovered the prison world. In 1991, she created a Multimedia Resource Centre in prison. Today, 400 inmates per week come there to take lessons on computer technology, foreign languages but also ethnology, writing, biology and sociology. To date, over 7000 inmates have used the centre.