Les vraies questions culturelles qui se posent à l’Europe, ce sont les migrations, le racisme, les rapports hommes-femmes, les religions, l’écologie. Marseille est sur la ligne de front des fractures de la planète.

This is a quote from Bernard Latarjet, the director of the Marseille-Provence 2013 team, which recently received the news that in 2013 Marseille will be the Cultural capital of the EU. This quotation from Le Monde captures the essence of why he believes Marseille won the bid over other French cities (Lyon, Bordeaux, & Toulouse)…I’m totally captivated by this idea of Marseille being on the front line of these critical cultural questions….

Very rough English translation: The real cultural questions for Europe are migration/immigration, racism, the relationship between men and women (gender), religion, and the environment. Marseille is on the front line of these fractures (issues) for the world.

I’m excited to see what Marseille does in 2013 to address these issues…

Also, America: we should start a similar program of choosing a city in the States to act as the cultural capital every year.

Marseille, cité des migrations, sera capitale européenne de la culture - Culture - Le Monde.fr