Rachida Dati announces that works from the Center Pompidou will be exhibited in surrounding galleries

“There must be work,” declared the minister on Sud Radio, while artists, politicians and intellectuals call, in a petition published on Saturday, Emmanuel Macron and Rachida Dati not to completely close this establishment, “a serious fault” according to them.

“The work is extremely important,” said Ms. Dati, further explaining that she “met the association of traders but also gallery owners who are around the Center”.

"We will have a program + mobility of works + which are exhibited at the Center Pompidou in nearby galleries", she said, specifying that she had taken this decision "before the dissolution" announced by the Head of State on the evening of European elections.

She recalled that exhibitions would also be held “at the Grand Palais, in part”.

The museum of modern art, also called Beaubourg and inaugurated almost half a century ago, must close in the summer of 2025 until 2030 for major asbestos removal and renovation work, estimated at 260 million euros financed by the State.

Apart from the Grand Palais, the works must also be hosted at the Louvre or in other Parisian museums (Orsay, Orangerie, Jeu de Paume, Guimet, Quai Branly....), at the Center Pompidou in Metz, in Martinique and in Guadeloupe , as well as abroad.

These works "can and must be carried out in a fragmented manner, without completely closing the entire site", said, in the petition, Daniel Buren, Julie Gayet, Catherine Millet, Alain Minc, Jacques Toubon and Manuel Valls, among other personalities .