Mediterranean Season 2026: over 200 events in France
Published on 16 February 2026
The Saison Méditerranée 2026 (May 15 - October 31) highlights the creativity, vitality and diversity of cultures from the shores of the Mediterranean. Conceived as a space for dialogue and cooperation, it brings together artists, intellectuals, researchers and civil society players from around the Mediterranean.
A Mediterranean or Mediterraneas?
In Marseille in June 2023, the French President announced the organization of a Mediterranean Season in 2026, which will enable joint projects from all shores of the Mediterranean to emerge. The Saison Méditerranée 2026 will showcase the richness and diversity of Mediterranean cultures. It celebrates the artists, creators and young talents of these regions, promoting cultural and human exchanges.
Supported by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture in conjunction with the Délégation interministérielle à la Méditerranée, the Saison Méditerranée 2026 is implemented by the Institut français with general curator Julie Kretzschmar.
The Mediterranean Season, after a popular and festive opening in Marseille, will take place mainly in France, throughout the country, between May 15 and October 31, 2026. It radiates out to the shores of the Mediterranean through the organization of several events in conjunction with artistic scenes, cultural structures in the region and the French diplomatic network abroad.
This Season is an opportunity to promote initiatives by young people and diasporas, support creation and innovation through the circulation of ideas and people, and encourage cooperation between civil societies, particularly with Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon.
The Season has proposed 5 themes to address contemporary issues in common: speculative utopias, plural identities, contemporary spiritualities, the collective history of migrations, the construction of narratives.
+ More than 60 cities
+ More than 200 events
14 disciplines
Five major themes to question our common world
The Season's general curator proposes an artistic and intellectual journey around five themes: speculative utopias, plural identities, contemporary spiritualities, the collective history of migrations, the construction of narratives.
Thought up in dialogue with Mediterranean personalities, they are all gateways to the contemporary issues running through our societies, between creation, memory and commitment.
- Lifestyles, fragility and new adaptations, environmental initiatives;
- Solidarities and collective practices around repairing and preserving living things.
The Mediterranean Sea is a zone of vulnerability at the heart of climate emergencies, conducive to the invention of practices that link social and environmental justice for a sustainable world.
- Hybridization, fluidity, multiplicity and agentivity of identifications;
- Language mixing, linguistic creolization.
The reinvention of plural identities, embodied in particular by younger generations, produces alternative and inclusive representations that combine particular identities and transcultural imaginaries.
- The reinvention and transformation of rituals;
- Transmissions and legacies.
How the imprint of contemporary spiritualities penetrates secular and everyday worlds in cultures on the shores of the Mediterranean, how these inhabit and share popular cultures.
- Memorial and biographical histories;
- Histories of binationals.
Migration memories, diasporic histories can be vectors of a foundation for thinking about the common and the present, and composing, from pathways and heritages, a living and contemporary national narrative.
- Documenting the present, living archives;
- Fictionalizing the real.
Civil societies are mobilized on global issues and initiators of new dialogues between individuals, state systems and regimes of power.
An abundant, interdisciplinary program
After a popular and festive opening in Marseille from May 15 to 24, 2026, the Season will spread throughout France until October 31, 2026, as well as internationally through highlights in several countries of the Mediterranean region.
From Marseille to Lille, Montpellier to Paris, over 200 events will bring together players from all disciplines: visual arts, performing arts, music, cinema, literature, debates and professional meetings.
The opening sequence will transform Marseille into a space of shared celebration: performances, concerts, screenings and meetings throughout the city - from the Pharo to the Mucem, from La Joliette to the Grand Port, via La Friche la Belle de Mai.
In addition to this programming in France, closing events for the Season will take place mainly in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon. These events will be organized by the diplomatic and cultural network with local partners and in coordination with the Season's general curator.
Discover the detailed program in the press kit
Julie Kretzschmar, general curator
Artistic director, curator and stage director, Julie Kretzschmar has been working for over twenty years to support contemporary creation, particularly from the southern shores of the Mediterranean and its diasporas, within the Bancs Publics structure in Marseille, and the Les Rencontres à l'échelle festival, dedicated to artists from the South. Her career testifies to a constant commitment to intercultural dialogue and the representation of diversity.
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On the same theme
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