Alexandre Gady denounces “accounting thinking which is devastating us in this country”. To preserve heritage, it is better to “increase the tourist tax by a few dozen cents”, advocates the historian.
Published on 10/24/2024 08:26
Reading time: 2min
<img alt="Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, September 26, 2024. (THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP)” width=”432″ height=”243″ sizes=”100vw” src=”https://www.francetvinfo.fr/pictures/mbpyAC2cfTpOwAFYJKKtiCj8K_E/0x202:3883×2387/432×243/2024/10/24/000-36h96gt-6719e7e009f27533615252.jpg” fetchpriority=”high”/>
Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, September 26, 2024. (THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP)
“You should not think about an entrance ticket to Notre-Dame”, reacted Thursday October 24 on franceinfo Alexandre Gady, heritage historian and member of the national commission for architecture and heritage, to the proposal of the Minister of Culture to make tourists pay for entry to the Notre-Dame cathedral. Lady of Paris. According to Rachida Dati, making tourists pay for entry to the building would help finance “a great religious safeguard plan” In France.
For the heritage historian, this is a “philosophical break”, contrary to the idea of “cultural democratization” that the Ministry of Culture created in 1959 by André Malraux must defend.
“A paying church is a museum, while we are trying to make some of the museums free.”
Alexandre Gady, heritage historian
at franceinfo
“If we pay for what is free, we are in another approach. In fact, we are in an approach of accounting thinking which is devastating us in this country”he shouted. “I think we are looking in the wrong place for the source of this money,” he added. Rachida Dati suggests in the interview with Figaro put online Wednesday evening to set the entry price at five euros per visitor, which would make it possible to raise “75 million euros per year”. A sum which “would save all the churches of Paris and France”argued the minister.
“Sorry, but these are calculations that are on paper, they have no reality”lamented Alexandre Gady. “Can you imagine what it means to put an entry ticket? That means that you have to put cash registers, that means that you have to put staff who validate the tickets. All that doesn’t come as That’s really an idea that’s far from heritage.”he continued. “You have solutions that have been recommended by specialists for years, even decades”notably that to “increase the tourist tax by a few dozen cents”, he pointed out.
