‘Le cinéma n’est que la fiente de la culture’: negotiating the position and content of French culture in postwar Britain

Abstract

Abstract In the early 1950s French diplomats pondered over how much space to grant to forms of popular culture within French cultural diplomacy in Britain, which had largely relied on academic culture over the previous decades. The debate over what forms of culture were suitable for a British audience intensified over the role that should be given to cinema. This article argues that the democratization of cultural diplomacy in the postwar period did not follow the same rationale as the processes of democratization taking place in mainland France at the same time. For diplomats in Britain organizing film screenings and participative encounters around the French language and arts, the aim was not to build a more equal and open society, but rather to ensure that as broad an audience as possible understood the values of France and its significance for Britain and the world.