Museums, increase the price of tickets or make them free? This is France’s dilemma
While some large French museums, such as the Louvre and Versailles, increase ticket prices in 2024, others focus on free entry as a tool for democratizing culture. The Le Monde article
When Véronique Antoine-Andersen picks up her pen, it is usually to write popular books. But when, in December 2023, the Louvre announced a spectacular increase in the price of the entrance ticket, now 22 euros, compared to the previous 15 euros online and 17 euros on site, the art historian's blood ran cold. He writes Le Monde .
The former mediator, who also worked at the Musée en herbe and the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris, immediately launched a petition on Change.org entitled “The Louvre is on fire! Against the 30% increase in entrance prices”. “As a citizen, I am stunned by this decision,” she explained, noting that free admission is one of the founding principles of the largest museum in the world.
Jean-Michel Tobelem is equally amazed. “Article 7 of the law on museums in France is very clear: entrance prices must be set in such a way as to favor access to the widest possible public,” says this professor from the University of Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne , denouncing the "elitization of museums". A study conducted in 2019 by the Center de recherche pour l'étude et l'observation des conditions de vie on behalf of the Ministry of Culture proves him right: 44% of our fellow citizens declared that they had given up visiting a museum or monument to because of the price. For 82% of them, the "psychological" price should not exceed 10 euros.
But the Louvre isn't the only French museum to charge a high price. To visit Versailles, visitors will have to pay 21 euros, 1.50 euros more than in 2023. At the Center des Monuments Nationaux (Centre of National Monuments), which includes around a hundred structures, prices will increase on average by 1 euro this year. year. “We have no choice,” says Marie Lavandier, president of the Center. “The health crisis has left its mark, despite the government's commitment, and the record attendance was not enough to get us going again due to inflation. We need to find some financial breathing space.”
ENERGY COSTS
For years, the large French museums have had to reconcile access to culture with financial autonomy. It's a real headache, especially when state grants and sponsorships run out, and the cost of restoration work goes up. The unpopular increase in entrance fees, approved and even encouraged by rue de Valois [headquarters of the Ministry of Culture], therefore seems inexorable. Especially since it penalizes foreign tourists above all, the main contingent of the great Parisian giants, ready to make any sacrifice to go back in time with Marie Antoinette, take a selfie with the Mona Lisa or enjoy the view of all of Paris from the Arc de Triomphe, where the ticket price will go from 13 to 16 euros in 2024.
The trend continues across Europe. From April 2023, entry to the Pantheon in Rome is subject to a fee. The Acropolis of Athens, starting from April 2025, will be 30% more expensive (30 euros instead of 20 euros). But there are still those who resist. The Musée d'Orsay will maintain current prices in 2024 (16 euros for permanent collections, 22 euros for major exhibitions and an evening ticket for 10 euros), despite inflation in energy costs. “We have almost achieved a 25% reduction in energy consumption compared to 2019 and we have the support of the French government, which will provide us with another 2 million euros,” explains Pierre-Emmanuel Lecerf, general director of the museum. “We chose to absorb the shock, because we can afford it.” But for how much longer, given that the museum will soon undergo major renovation and redevelopment works?
Some diehards refuse to give in to the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, by keeping their museums free. This is the case of André Laignel, the enthusiastic socialist mayor of Issoudun (Indre), re-elected continuously for almost 47 years. In 1984, this self-taught man of modest origins decided to make his museums free, in a city where per capita income is 20% lower than the national average. “At Jules Ferry schools are free, so it seemed natural to me that culture was also essentially free in a city where people don't spontaneously go to museums,” says the elected official in a calm tone. Even in Rouen there is no talk of stopping the free collections of the eleven municipal museums, introduced in 2016: “We lose 1.7 million euros a year in revenue. It is a considerable effort, but it is a long-term policy,” says Robert Blaizeau, director of the city museums.
It is not enough to declare the museum free for the public to show up en masse. In Rouen, attendance at the city's eleven museums increased by 30% between 2015 and 2016, reaching 250,000 visitors. But in 2023, attendance stabilized at 284,000 visitors. Blaizeau admits: “There was a novelty effect, but we have to maintain it. And, above all, to spread the news: too many people still don't know that in Rouen, Dijon or Paris you can enter the museum without paying. Some are put off by having to buy a ticket at the ticket office, even if they don't have to pay anything. To attract a wider audience, over the past two years the city of Rouen has hired around ten young people to carry out awareness-raising activities at the station or in a shopping centre.
INTERMEDIATE SOLUTION
But its impact is difficult to measure. After forty years at the helm of structures such as the Cinémathèque and La Villette in Paris, Bernard Latarjet doesn't need figures to form an opinion on the subject. “Those who benefit most from free entry are those who need it the least. The profit effect exceeds the social effect”, states the former special advisor to Jack Lang, according to whom “blind gratuitousness is the easy way out”. Dimitri Boutleux, culture councilor of Bordeaux, agrees: “60% of our visitors come to the city's museums for free, but we would like to reverse the trend to reach 60% of paying visitors, so as to be able to finance a real own policy to help young people and people with special needs,” says Boutleux, who increased fees for municipal museums in 2022.
Improving targeting and refining the giveaway policy are the new buzzwords. The Louvre, where 40% of visitors will enter for free in 2023, has replaced the first free Sunday of the month with a free monthly evening event, in hopes of reaching a local audience. The results are still modest: just 95,000 people took advantage of the program in 2023.
At the Abbey of Maubuisson (Val-d'Oise), free entry is the subject of in-depth reflection. “For the public, 'free' means 'without value or interest,'” says Marie Ménestrier, director of the contemporary art center. The director is evaluating an intermediate solution, according to which visitors would pay what they want at the entrance, as happens in some London museums. “I don't think a symbolic tax will discourage visitors,” says the director.
Especially if they come from far away. Since 2015, the city of Nice has made a radical choice: access to the ten municipal museums is free for residents. Tourists, who represent 70% of visitors, have to pay 10 euros. Is this a violation of equality? “No one has ever complained about this,” says Robert Roux, the city's culture delegate, as he announces a 13% increase in attendance at museums. “After all, passport discrimination already exists: European Union students under 26 enter national museums for free, while young people from the rest of the world pay a high price.”
(Excerpt from the foreign press review edited by eprcomunicazione )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/musei-aumentare-il-prezzo-dei-biglietti-o-renderli-gratuiti-questo-e-il-dilemma-della-francia/ on Sat, 13 Jan 2024 07:06:35 +0000.