PARIS: Speaking before some of France’s best-known actors, singers, musicians, directors and producers, President Jacques Chirac says that France will not in any way allow itself to be crushed by the American cultural steam-roller, and that he will soon propose to Unesco that it have its member countries adopt a “world convention on cultural diversity,” that should enter into force by 2005.

Speaking during a session of the international meeting of professional cultural organisations, Mr Chirac said that “just as the map of the world is being redrawn, we must think of opposing ourselves to this universe where competition is king and where the battle for profit predominates.”

“Rather,” he said, “we should seek instead a system where the state, and law, and the national and international instances of arbitration set the rules of the game, and remain vigilant so that they are respected.”

“And,” he added, “this holds (true) especially for culture and for the arts, activities that cannot be reduced to the laws of the marketplace. It therefore belongs to our public institutions to preserve and enrich the patrimony of our nations, honour their spirit and their genius, the various traditions and knowledge of our different peoples, also given to each of us, by way of education, the keys to progress and a better future. ”

He admitted that “Globalization it does offer a promise of new horizons, of exalting discoveries, of the mix of and exchange between the cultures of the world, something to which today’s arts bear witness.”

“But,” he added, “if we’re not careful, everything may very well converge towards a system where cultural might makes right, where only the culture of the fit would survive, and towards the inevitable triumph of culture that is preconceived to appeal to the largest possible audience, and inexorably towards the growth of inequalities, the confrontation between a dominant culture and that of the rest of the world.”

Mr Chirac reminded his audience that he’d always played a seminal role in insisting that France be allowed to maintain its cultural “exception,” Mr Chirac went on to note that “although our country is opened to exchange (with other cultures), we nevertheless refuse to pass under the steam-roller of homogenisation and uniformization, and above all will always see to it that culture does not bend before the rule of commerce. Rather, it is culture that will give us the weapons with which we will respond to the new challenge posed by globalization to the human adventure.”