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- East facade of the Château de Pontchartrain (Yvelines), sold by the chopping block
Photo : Alain Janssoone (CC BY-SA 1.0) - See the image in its page
It may be a politically uncertain time in France, but there is no denying the need to make savings. Antoine Armand, the new Minister for the Economy and Finance, and Laurent Saint-Martin, the new Minister for the Budget, certainly don’t think otherwise.
And yet, in the field of heritage, which some consider costly (when in fact it is an investment that all studies show will pay off in the long run), there are tax niches that contribute to the vandalism of historic monuments.
We’re not talking here about tax breaks for insulating old buildings, which some people - wrongly - think are beneficial, but about another tax break that almost no-one - apart from those who make their living from it - can defend.
This is the possibility for property developers to divide up monuments, particularly châteaux, into flats and give their buyers tax deductions on the pretext that they are restoring them. We published here a long article by Julien Lacaze, the president of the Sites & Monuments association, which demonstrates this deception: costly for the State budget, this mechanism leads to scandalous vandalism, the opposite of what it claims to defend. For example - and this is just one example - the Château de Pontchartrain has been dismantled, and also partly stripped of its works of art (because obviously these cannot remain in a château that has been divided into flats).
A few months ago, we spoke to the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, about this issue, and she told us that she wanted to take a close look at it. At a time when it was still unclear whether she would remain in her post, and as part of a review of the few months she has spent at the Ministry (see also this article), we wanted to find out from her office whether any progress had been made on this issue.
The answer was yes: the Ministry of Culture has approached Bercy to see if this truly harmful ’tax niche’ can be abolished, which can be done simply by going back to the situation before 2017 when approval from the Ministry of Culture was required to benefit from the tax deduction. Sometimes (for example, in the case of former barracks or abbeys), the layout of the premises makes it possible to create certain flats without damaging the monument. This did not prevent certain disasters, as we know that the Ministry of Culture is not an absolute guarantee against damage to heritage: in 2005, for example, the Château de Clermont au Cellier, which once belonged to Louis de Funès, even though it was listed in 1941, was cut up in this way with the approval of the DRAC. But it did provide an additional safeguard.
All very well, then. A measure that is bad for heritage and costs the taxpayer money: the Ministry of the Budget could only be in favour. But no! It is this ministry that is blocking this issue, as the Ministry of Culture has told us, for reasons that, to tell the truth, escape us. We have contacted the press office of the Ministry of Finance who will not be able to give us an answer until Monday, which we will publish following this article.
The whole thing is totally incomprehensible and intolerable. Let’s hope that the Minister for Culture and the new Minister for the Budget can finally manage to unblock this absurd situation. France’s financial situation is not good, to put it mildly, as the Prime Minister has just pointed out. We are proposing to him a measure that would make it possible to make a few savings and that has only disadvantages, both for public finances and for heritage. We can’t think of a single political party that would oppose this.