Paris (AFP)

While, from the Louvre to MUCEM in Marseille, the big museums are working their brakes, the reopening of small museums and monuments is now possible. But it promises to be progressive, many targeting the beginning of June which is also the meeting set by the executive to take stock of the deconfinement.

The "small museums", which do not imply "significant displacements outside a basin of life or the department, could reopen from May 11", specified the Minister for Culture Franck Riester.

It will be, he added, to owners, public or private, "to see if they are able to comply with the recommendations".

After the mayor's opinion, a decree will still have to approve the reopening. Not very precise, the name "small museums" given by the executive has put many city officials and museum directors in embarrassment.

Some, who hardly risked being invaded, took the bet to reopen here and there: thus, from the Image Museum in Epinal or from the Manor of Kerazan in Finistère. The Ingres-Bourdelle museum in Montauban is also preparing to receive visitors on weekends from May 16. And, on May 21, the Soulages museum will reopen in Rodez.

The reception of the public is easier in the open-air sites: thus, the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire will hold its annual Garden Festival in May. But no decision was made for the popular house of Claude Monet in Giverny.

At the Center des monuments nationaux (CMN), which manages more than a hundred museums, sites and monuments, there are plans to reopen between early June and mid-July. It is necessary, for very popular monuments such as the Arc de triomphe, to provide facilities allowing to have routes that avoid any health risk.

- "Provisional timetable" -

At Paris-Musées, which brings together museums managed by the City, a "provisional calendar" has also been adopted, pending what Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will say in early June.

The objective is to reopen on June 16 several museums (Bourdelle, Liberation, Romantic life, Balzac house, Cernuschi) as well as an exhibition at the Petit-Palais ("the force of drawing") and the Catacombs (where the gauge is easy to respect, by reservation slots).

"We have favored museums where exhibitions were in progress or almost ready," Delphine Levy, director of Paris-Museums, told AFP, stressing that the months of closure make it possible to complete small works.

For each museum, Paris-Musées sends a file for approval with a series of measures specific to the prefecture and the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC).

The losses linked to the crisis - ticket offices, catalogs, etc. - amount to 12 million euros, deplores Ms. Levy.

Since 2013, she notes, "we had nevertheless managed to increase our self-financing from 16 to 23%. What is a force is turning against us".

"A priori" other Parisian museums, which had beautiful exhibitions in progress, - "Turner" at Jacquemart André, or "Césanne" at Marmottan - are targeting June 2 for a possible reopening.

The same goes for immersive exhibition spaces in vogue, Atelier des Lumières in Paris or Carrières de Lumières in Baux-de-Provence. As for the Bassins de Lumières in Bordeaux, they will have to wait until summer for their inauguration.

The Louvre-Lens is working on a gradual reopening from June 3, subject to the transition to the "green" zone of Pas-de-Calais, and the Center Pompidou-Metz would reopen on June 13.

- "Visitor Charter" -

In Paris, the Giacometti Institute is one of the exceptions in a landscape of closed doors.

It will open on Thursday. On its site, we are invited to read its "visitor charter" which will appear on the online ticket and which will list the barrier gestures, in particular the physical distance of at least one meter fifty to be respected. Mediators will be there to indicate the direction of the visit. A maximum of ten people will be welcomed every 20 minutes.

In these days before the opening, the team of this mini-museum was busy deep cleaning, installing the protective barrier in plexiglass and the dispenser of hydroalcoholic gel.

Will this reopening be an opportunity to finally highlight the small public and private museums, the pride of isolated villages? Not sure, as the striking force of a museum depends above all on its power of communication.

© 2020 AFP