La culture comme levier de la puissance : le cas de la politique culturelle de la France aux États-Unis pendant la guerre froide

This article analyses specificities and stakes of the French cultural policy in New York during the years 1944-1963. During the Cold War, France and the United States were not only allies, culturally speaking, defending together a certain conception for the independence of thinking and a freedom of creation but also rivals, New York emerging as the new capital of the Western avant-garde. The aims of the French cultural policy were not only intellectual or aesthetic but above all symbolic and political. Through artistic events, this cultural propaganda intended to promote a new image of France which was supposed to win the lifeblood of the American society – in particular the middle class and the youth – over the idea that this country was both able to assume the importance of its cultural heritage and to contribute to solve the problems of the contemporary world.