Margareth Menezes performs during the draw for the 2014 World Cup in Sao Joao da Mata
Wed, February 8, 2023
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Margareth Menezes
Minister of Culture, Brazilian politician and singer
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's former far-right president dismantled all government cultural programs and blocked funding for institutions and artists, the country's new Culture Minister Margareth Menezes said on Wednesday.
Menezes, a popular singer from Bahia, was picked by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to head the newly restored ministry that had been shut down by his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who reduced it to an office of the tourism ministry.
"He doesn't like culture," Menezes said of Bolsonaro at a news conference. "My mission is to rebuild the ministry and cultural policies that were destroyed," she said.
Artists were considered "outlaws" by Bolsonaro, she said, and his government defunded not just cultural programs but institutions that look after Brazil's historic buildings and cultural heritage.
Menezes, who toured with musician David Byrne in 1990, said Lula has assigned "generous" resources to get cultural programs up and running again.
Her ministry will also see to the repair and restoration of art work and furniture vandalized by Bolsonaro supporters who stormed government buildings on Jan. 8 calling for a military coup to oust Lula and restore Bolsonaro.
A Swiss clock company has offered to restore the 18th-century French clock that was destroyed that day by a Bolsonaro supporter, Menezes said.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Sandra Maler)
France minister visits Brazil's Lula amid push for better ties post-Bolsonaro
Brazil's Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira talks with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna before a news conference at Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia
Wed, February 8, 2023
BRASILIA (Reuters) - France's foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday in a visit resetting relations following a feud between the two countries' presidents in 2019.
It was the first French ministerial visit to Brazil since 2019 when Lula's far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, angered by President Emmanuel Macron's criticism of his handling of forest fires in the Amazon, mocked the French leader's wife on Facebook.
"With this visit, we turn the page on the last few years and put our relations back on the high level that both of our societies hope for and desire," Brazil's foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, said at a news conference.
He said the two countries were resuming the partnership that had been forged in 2006 by Lula, in his first term as Brazil's president, and President Jacques Chirac.
Vieira said Colonna's visit marked France's support for democracy in Brazil, which was threatened by Bolsonaro and his supporters who stormed government buildings calling for a military coup last month.
Lula has invited Macron to attend a summit of heads of state of the eight countries that belong to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), since French Guiana is part of the Amazon region.
The summit is expected to take place in Brazil in March.
Macron would then visit Brasilia, Vieira said.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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