Photo: B. Gavaudo/CMN
Philippe Bélaval was, among the many positions he held at the Ministry of Culture, a good director of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, and he can be regarded as a friend of heritage. It is therefore sad to see him go astray, at the end of his career (he has passed retirement age), in this surreal role of “special adviser to the president of the Republic for the loan of the tapestry to the British Museum”. The interview he has just given to Le Point amply demonstrates the absurdity of this mission.
He had already told AFP: “It is my role to convince people that the tapestry can be moved without danger.” Everyone can see how problematic this statement is. It can be translated as follows: “It is my role to convince people that the president of the Republic is right against all the specialists on the subject.” A pure propaganda exercise, therefore, against the facts.
In Le Point he asserts, against all common sense: “The question is no longer whether the tapestry can be transported or not, since it must in any case be transported as part of these works.” We have already responded on several occasions to this totally twisted argument. Yes, the Tapestry was to be moved during the works on the museum. But in a crate and according to a protocol specially designed for this purpose, and for less than one kilometre. Absolutely not over a long distance, with, moreover, unpacking, installation for exhibition and repacking followed by another long journey back.
As Violaine de Montclos, the journalist conducting the interview, points out this fact, Philippe Bélaval is undeterred and tells — regrettably we must say — nonsense: “Once these works had been decided on and this short journey had become unavoidable, we really began to think about this transport which had never previously been seriously considered.” This is simply false. There was never any question of considering this transport except to note that it was impossible.
He even adds: “The additional problem over a long distance is vibrations. Obviously this has to be resolved, and that is why we are conducting additional studies on this specific subject.” On the one hand, vibrations are only part of the problems — he says nothing about the numerous handling operations that the exhibition would entail. On the other hand, he admits that this major problem has in no way been resolved. He therefore acknowledges that the tapestry is untransportable, if only because of vibrations — as all the specialists say — and that this issue is not solved. But no need to worry: thanks to the voluntarism of the president of the Republic, this minor point (which is only part of the problem) will be resolved. A typical example of magical thinking.
As a good defender of his boss, Philippe Bélaval heard no contempt for the experts — essentially, let us recall, the textile conservators who have worked on the piece for several years — in Emmanuel Macron’s speech at the British Museum. Let us here simply recall the words of the latter, uttered with a small smile: “I have to confess, we did our best not to be put in this situation to make the loan of the Bayeux tapestry. And we found the best experts of the world to explain in perfect detail why it was impossible to make such a loan. And believe me, we found them, and believe me, we could have found them again.” Is that not contemptuous? It will take more than an assertion from Philippe Bélaval to convince us. Or to convince Le Parisien, which wrote that the president of the Republic “mocks” the specialists, Le Monde, which wrote that the president of the Republic “taunted” them, or again TF1, according to which the head of State “made ironic remarks.” We have already mentioned 1984 in connection with this affair (see the article). Not only are archives made to disappear, but new meanings are invented for words. “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” and now, therefore, “contempt is admiration.”
Let us finish with his conclusion, and his totally absurd comparison with Notre-Dame: “Remember Notre-Dame! When Emmanuel Macron committed after the fire to restore it in five years, nobody believed it… Yet the commitment was kept.” On the one hand, this assertion can be contested since Notre-Dame was not restored in five years, the work continuing for several more years. The public was able to re-enter Notre-Dame in five years and eight months, which is indeed a fine achievement. Nobody, however, had said the contrary, except concerning the completion of the roof and the spire, which many — including us — thought would take longer. But must one really, even assuming that Notre-Dame would be a success to his credit [1], recall the countless commitments, in all fields, made by Emmanuel Macron, and which turned out to be failures? One could then take them as examples to draw an analogy with his decision to transport the Bayeux Tapestry.