Electronic music added to French Intangible Cultural Heritage list

Justice at last!

Following Berlin techno being added to the German list of intangible heritage in 2023, electronic music has finally made it onto the French Intangible Cultural Heritage list. This represents the first step towards UNESCO heritage status.

The list of intangible cultural heritage allows signatory states of the UNESCO Convention to register “practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities recognise as part of their cultural heritage” – everything from music and craftsmanship to culinary skills, traditional games and sports.

“Electronic music has a rightful place in our national intangible heritage,” said French Culture Minister Rachida Dati on Wednesday, confirming this first step. Recently, the ministry created a label for clubs as “places of artistic expression and celebration”.

Earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron called for French electronic music - also referred to as French touch - to be granted UNESCO cultural heritage status.

"I love Germany - you know how pro-European I am,” said Macron. “But we don’t have to take lessons from anyone. We are the inventors of electro. We have that French touch."

Mostly defined by its geographical situation, as opposed to adherence to a specific sound, French Touch was spearheaded by the likes of Daft Punk, Étienne de Crécy, Bob Sinclair, AIR, Cassius and many more, and has spanned various genres – from house, dance, electro, old school disco to jazz and plenty of glorious sampling.

For Tommy Vaudecrane, president of Technopol, the association for the defence and promotion of electronic music and organiser of the Paris Techno Parade since 1998, this listing is “an achievement and a historic milestone”.

“The first tears I shed for electronic music were under tear gas when it was demonised. The little tear I shed today is the joy of seeing our music finally listed as cultural heritage,” Vaudecrane told AFP.

Among the fourteen new items of French intangible heritage are Parisian haute couture, the agricultural fairs of Doubs, the Debaa of the women of Mayotte (a form of song and dance), the Chjam'è rispondi (poetic jousting in Corsica) and the Demoscene, a popular digital creation movement.