ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on an ethnographic enquiry on the French punk rock scene, aims at examining the way punk entrepreneurship works in France. It concentrates on a set of clearly less conventional—specifically French—resources, which have to do with the numerous systems public authorities implement in order to support cultural production, youth or even employment. The punk rock scene is globally based on a network of artistic and cultural operators who share common musical tastes. In France, support for cultural production is implemented in the name of cultural democracy. Broadly, the idea is to support cultural diversity, the professionalization of its agents and the development of economic sectors linked to culture. In France, the institutionalization of rock, and then of contemporary popular music, leads many informed citizens to deeply interiorize the mechanisms of public intervention. And also the principles of cultural democracy, solidarity and innovation precisely offer a certain number of resources.
