French government abandons plan for a terrorism memorial museum – Technologist

Along with an institution dedicated to the French language, which opened its doors in Villers-Cotterêts, Picardy, in 2023, it was to be the other major museum project of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency. But the Terrorism Memorial Museum, due to open in March 2027 in the Paris suburb of Suresnes, will not see the light of day.

The news was made official in a December 10 press release from the museum’s planning committee: “This decision was taken unilaterally, without any consultation of those in charge of the project, without knowing anything about its progress, and without informing the associations of victims of terrorism, who have been involved for several years in the creation of this place of memory and history,” the text stated.

“We can’t say it was a total surprise,” explained historian Henry Rousso, president of the planning committee. “The project, which was due to start in May 2024, had come to a complete standstill due to lack of payment of their share by the ministries concerned. We wrote to the president of the Republic at the end of June, and again in July. Our letters went unanswered.” The prime minister’s office also turned a deaf ear, until it summoned Rousso and his number two, Elisabeth Pelsez, on Friday, December 6.

‘Political decision-making’

They then learned that the fate of the memorial museum was sealed at an interministerial meeting to which the main stakeholders were not invited. The reason given was the cost of the project – €95 million over eight years, shared between the Ministries of Justice, Interior Ministry, the Armed Forces and Culture – at a time of budgetary restraint.

Rousso and Pelsez contested “not only the decision itself but also the manner in which it was made.” The budgetary argument did not convince either the president or the director general, who saw in the silence of the government, at all levels for several months, the sign of an unannounced U-turn. “We’ve already encountered funding difficulties,” explained Pelsez. “Each time, they were resolved by presidential intervention.”

The memorial museum was originally the result of a personal initiative by Macron in 2018. Every year, on March 11, the International Day of Commemoration for the Victims of Terrorism, the president reiterated his commitment to open the museum in 2027. When contacted, Macron’s adviser on historical and memorial questions, Bruno Roger-Petit, did not reply to Le Monde.

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