The Unesco Creative Cities Network was created in 2004. In 2021, 295 cities around the world had been designated Unesco Creative Cities, spread over seven artistic fields: music, literature, cinema, gastronomy, digital arts, popular arts and design.
The aim of this Network of Creative Cities is to share good practices and initiate inter-city cooperation: this is the purpose of the conference held on Wednesday 1 December at Metz.
Philippe Sueur, Mayor of Enghien-les-Bains, chaired the annual meeting of the French Creative Cities Committee in Metz, in the presence of the 8 French cities in the Unesco Creative Cities network, which cover the 7 areas. Her mandate was unanimously renewed for a period of 3 years. Her Excellency the French Ambassador to Unesco emphasised universalism as a priority of human rights.
The City of Saint-Etienne has been designated as a Unesco Creative Design City since the end of 2010. It was represented by its focal point, Isabelle Vérilhac, International and Innovation Director at the Cité du design.
The objective of this meeting was to establish the French Committee's action plan for 2022 and 2023 and to welcome the two new member cities of the network, Cannes and Rouen, respectively Unesco City of Cinema and City of Gastronomy.
The actions with the City of Saint-Étienne are as follows:
- Angoulême + Saint-Étienne: launch of an international competition for a comic book street furniture (designer and comic book author pair). With the support of the cities of Saint-Étienne and Montréal. - Limoges + Saint-Étienne: collaboration between the city of Limoges and the Cité du design, desire to offer active design solutions to pedestrianise one of Limoges' urban arteries (Rue Jean Jaurès). - Saint-Étienne is proposing a workshop on tomorrow's mobility to the French Unesco Creative Cities during the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Étienne 2022.
