Controversial project on the historic Marie Curie site in Paris

Advancing science or preserving heritage? Marie Curie, who rests at the end of the street, at the Pantheon, where François Mitterrand brought her in 1995 with her husband Pierre, "did not defend the past but the future by demanding laboratories".

This is what Thierry Philip, the chairman of the board of directors of the Institut Curie, and a great-grandson of Marie Curie, Marc Joliot, member of the supervisory board, say in a letter.

This cancer foundation wants to build a five-storey building on this site, or around “2.000 m2” of surface area, to house “the first biological chemistry center for cancer in Europe”, explains Thierry Philip to AFP .

First woman to receive a Nobel Prize (in physics, with Pierre, in 1903), first woman to teach at the Sorbonne, Marie Curie remains to this day the only person to have obtained two Nobels in two different disciplines, with that of chemistry in 1911.

In 1914, the Radium Institute that she founded moved into a set of three buildings on rue d'Ulm, on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, a center of French research.

"Storage area" ?

It is the smallest of the three, an elegant two-story stone and brick building, called Pavillon des sources, which is the subject of a demolition permit.

Its heritage value is contested: for Thierry Philip, it is a “place for storing radioactive sources but not a laboratory. Marie Curie did not work there”.

Except that the Curie Museum itself indicates on its site that the scientist "formed a team intended to manufacture radium emanation bulbs", then used in "military hospitals to sanitize war wounds" from 1914 -18.

“It was an essential part of Marie Curie’s historical laboratory,” maintains Baptiste Gianeselli, who campaigns against this project, supporting photos, texts and testimonies. According to him, the destruction of the building is "imminent" after the deployment of barriers and the dismantling of the emergency staircase on Friday.

Anne Biraben, elected LR for the 5th arrondissement, points out that the Institut Curie has already destroyed an Art Deco building on its site this fall, despite protests.

Instead, the Curie Institute is building a “new hospital” which will be used to “bring researchers and doctors together”, explains Thierry Philip.

In September, the Old Paris Commission, a consultative body of the town hall, which remains the decision-maker on permits, criticized in vain "the massive and disproportionate nature" of the project.

“Denatured” set

As for the razed building, "we didn't see it coming", summarizes Grégory Chaumet, member of this commission and president of the Paris historique association, who is asking for a "classification body" in order to postpone the project.

The future building also threatens the “century-old lime trees” that Marie Curie had planted in the adjacent garden, adds SOS Paris, another association.

The subject has become political since, in mid-October, the leader of the LR opposition in the Council of Paris, Rachida Dati, asked the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak to register the site as a historic monument.

Thierry Philip affirms that he is not "going to destroy" the pavilion until he has "received the building permit".

The latter "follows the usual path" but "all the lights are green", indicated the town planning assistant Emmanuel Grégoire, recalling that the Architects of Buildings of France have "issued a favorable opinion".

For Thierry Philip, "this project must be located on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève", alongside other prestigious establishments in the district, to "keep very high-level researchers" in France.