Marseille: Fort Saint-Jean falls victim to costly inclusivity efforts

At the time of Pierre-Olivier Costa’s appointment as head of the Mucem — without any vacancy notice or call for applications having been published —, we had sent him an email asking on what basis he had been appointed to this position, and what his skills were in museum management. He was in fact the subject of a lawsuit challenging his legitimacy, his appointment appearing to be due above all to his most recent position: chief of staff to Brigitte Macron. We had received no reply, and had not published an article, but we had shared our surprise with the site Politico which had questioned us on the matter: “The problem is that there are appointments to head public institutions that are mere sinecures of the Republic, where people are appointed to please them because no one knows where to place them”.

The ministry had replied to the Figaro that he had “proposed a project opening the Mucem up to societal issues, including youth, health or biodiversity, all in a multidisciplinary spirit”.
Since then, the unions have revealed that the president of the Mucem was “the subject of a preliminary investigation for sexual and moral harassment in a climate of growing tension and unease [1]”. The General Inspectorate of Cultural Affairs has also been seized. The president of the Mucem, although he benefits from the presumption of innocence, has recently been suspended “at his request” and as a precautionary measure [2].

At least Pierre-Olivier Costa is “inclusive”! It is indeed on this basis that the Mucem had commissioned from the “artist” Ora-Ito — and, above all, from the Ludoparc company — an “inclusive playground”, installed a few weeks ago at Fort Saint-Jean. Let us recall that the…