Remarkable announcements from the Minister for Culture

The interview that Rachida Dati has just given to our colleagues at Figaro marks, in our view, an unexpected and remarkable turning point in the heritage policy of the Ministry of Culture. While we still have our differences with the Minister (the main one being, of course, the replacement of Notre-Dame’s stained glass windows, which we will continue to fight fiercely), and while we have regretted some of her decisions (see this article), it has to be said that several of the announcements made during this interview will, if they are put into practice, mark a turning point for the protection of historic monuments.
Let’s move on to his wish to charge admission to Notre-Dame de Paris. While we can understand why some people would want to do this for major religious buildings, there are a large number of reasons, which we will no doubt detail in a later article, that make it a bad idea. Above all, it’s impossible in France, because article 17 of the 1905 law prohibits it: "Visits to buildings and the display of listed movable objects shall be public: they may not give rise to any tax or fee". It would certainly be conceivable to change this law. But given the delicate nature of a text governing the relationship between religion and the State, this seems unlikely. All the more so as the Church, as the lessee, has consistently opposed the introduction of admission charges, notably through the Conférence des Églises de France in 2017 when Stéphane Bern raised the issue.
Let’s not forget the minister’s support for advertising on monuments under restoration, which we have long been fighting against. The fact that it was an elected member of the Rassemblement National who recently proposed repealing this measure will not change our minds on the matter. We have arguments which, so far, have never been contradicted (see for example this article). We can’t turn Paris in particular (where hoardings are most prevalent) into a sandwich city, as has been the case for too long. Funding for heritage restoration is an essential issue, but neither the entrance to Notre-Dame nor advertising on historic monuments are acceptable solutions. At the end of this editorial, we’ll come back to the two measures we’ve been proposing for several years now, which should make it possible - without worsening the French State deficit - to raise enough money (and much more than the 75 million a year mentioned by the Minister, which is still far from enough) to achieve this result.
On the other hand, we would like to highlight the measures mentioned by Rachida Dati, which we feel represent major progress.
The creation of a French-style ‘National Trust’, which she has been calling for and which she says she wants to start work on in the next few weeks, has been talked about for a long time. We can only endorse it, even if it will require very substantial investment, at least in the early stages. So we come back to the question of budgets.
Should tourists from outside the EU pay more to enter national monuments and museums? Why not, since this is already the case in some foreign countries (in New York, for example, the Metropolitan Museum is free for New Yorkers, but very expensive for others). But in our opinion, this should only be practised marginally, as it could dissuade many tourists from visiting our country.
The announcement that seems essential to us is her wish to better protect Paris, which she rightly claims is an under-protected city. And, paradoxically no doubt, one of the least well protected in France. To remedy this situation, a solution does exist, one that has proved its worth in a large number of French communes: the remarkable heritage sites ("sites patrimoniaux remarquables"), the heirs to the safeguarded areas ("secteurs sauvegardés"). These make it possible to precisely define the rules for protecting heritage in historic districts, clearly stating what is possible and what is not. They define the buildings that must be preserved, those that can be replaced, possibly with the same template, and those that can be demolished. They also make it possible to impose the conservation of deserving interiors - staircases, cellars, woodwork, etc. - without having to protect them individually. Accusations that the Architectes des Bâtiments de France make arbitrary decisions would be much less widespread because the rules would be known. Even developers would benefit, as they would know immediately what is and isn’t possible, and would be subject to far fewer appeals, which would make their projects more secure.
This exists in most of France’s historic cities. However, in Paris, only two districts - the Marais and part of the 7th arrondissement - benefit from it, which is unacceptable. It should be noted that the City of Paris praises them on its website, writing: "The PSMV [1] aim to prevent the disappearance of historic heritage or its irreversible damage by promoting its restoration and enhancement (while allowing it to evolve)". It would be hard to understand why she would oppose this...
We have written on several occasions that such sectors should be set up in the capital, notably last year in this article, and again in this one last February, when we wrote, directly questioning Rachida Dati who had just been appointed: "Paris has only had two protected sectors since the law initiated by André Malraux was created in the 1960s, which is obviously not enough. We are therefore asking the Minister, alongside Sites & Monuments and the other associations that will be joining her, to create several protected sectors so that the whole of Historic Paris benefits from the protection it deserves. Proposals will soon be made, to which we will associate ourselves", and we were still reminding people of this need on 8 October last.
We are therefore delighted that the Minister is today announcing that she wants to put this into practice. She mentions Île-Saint-Louis, Faubourg Saint-Antoine and Nouvelle Athènes, but also Montmartre and Butte-aux-Cailles. Others are needed (the Latin Quarter, for example, or part of the 16th arrondissement, with its wealth of Art Deco and Art Nouveau buildings), but it’s important to get the ball rolling. We should also point out that the mayor of the 11th arrondissement, François Vauglin, is in favour of creating a protected area for the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and that Delphine Bürkli, mayor of the 9th arrondissement, is also in favour of creating one for the Nouvelle Athènes!
So let’s finish as we said, with the question of funding. In addition to the €75 million that the Minister believes a €5 entrance fee to Notre-Dame would bring in [2]. In order to achieve this goal, we proposed two measures which alone could, with a constant budget for the State and virtually painless for the French, bring in around 500 million euros a year more for heritage [3]. We detailed all of this - a 1.8% tax on all bets at La Française des Jeux, and an increase of one euro per night in the tourist tax - in this article to which we refer the reader. We were talking to members of parliament, and now we’re including the Minister of Culture, who wants to get things moving. If she were to see all these heritage protection projects through to the end, and if she were to add massive long-term funding to them (and let’s repeat that this would be painless for public finances), Rachida Dati would be following in the direct footsteps of André Malraux and Jack Lang.