While a Defense Council is considering the future of cultural establishments on Wednesday, closed since the end of October, concern is growing on the side of non-subsidized private museums, whose financial balance depends above all on the attendance rates.

Like cinemas and theaters, museums have still been at a standstill for almost three months in the face of Covid-19, and after several postponements, they still do not know when they can reopen.

In 2020, the drop in attendance was 75% on average for these establishments.

The Louvre, to name but one, shows a loss of revenue of more than 90 million euros.

Now, concerns are growing for the year 2021, especially on the side of non-subsidized private museums, which are particularly affected.

On Wednesday, on the occasion of a new Defense Council, a reopening date could be announced.

An increasingly precarious financial situation

Currently, the private Maillol museum loses several tens of thousands of euros each month.

"I put my whole team on short-time work. We cut costs as much as possible but I lose money. Even there, by reducing costs, it's painful", testifies to Europe 1 its director, Olivier Lorquin.

The total lack of visibility also adds to the stress: "Curfew, confinement, variants ... we are in a kind of appalling artistic vagueness. I am really in a state ... We cannot do an exhibition project. like that over the next two months, ”laments Olivier Lorquin.

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The limits of the aid system

Same dismay for Foulques d'Aboville, the Île-de-France manager of Culturespaces, an organization that manages several museums and historical monuments, such as the Jacquemart-André museum or the Art Center in Aix-en-Provence.

"The financial situation is catastrophic. We lose more than 60% of our turnover, it is absolutely considerable", he reports.

"The aid system, however virtuous it may be, will never replace being able to work under normal conditions."

And the situation is also beginning to weigh on staff morale, we confirm from the Impressionist Museum in Giverny, which is also losing hundreds of thousands of euros.