Illiers-Combray (France) (AFP)

Emmanuel Macron called on Wednesday, in the run-up to Heritage Days, to "always invent and reinvent" French heritage, by visiting the house where Marcel Proust spent his holidays as a child, and on the eve of inaugurating the Arc de Triomphe packed by Christo.

"Heritage is both our roots (...) that we must maintain, and an investment that makes our crafts, our craftsmen work ...", declared the Head of State to Illiers-Combray (Eure-et-Loir).

There he visited Marcel Proust's "Aunt Léonie's house", accompanied by his wife Brigitte, the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot and the host Stéphane Bern.

Heritage is "something that we always have to invent and reinvent, through gestures of creation and re-creation. This is what we did with Buren, and what we will see with Christo tomorrow", he added, referring to the ephemeral work of Daniel Buren inaugurated Monday at the Elysee Palace.

Emmanuel Macron is due to inaugurate Thursday afternoon "The Arc de Triomphe packed, Paris 1961-2021", the posthumous work of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

Visible until October 3, this artistic project "is entirely self-financed thanks to the sale of original works by Christo and produced by his team, in partnership with the Center des monuments nationaux (CMN)", according to the Elysee.

The house "of Tante Léonie", where Marcel Proust spent his holidays between 1877 and 1880 and from which he was inspired for his novel "In search of lost time", is one of the historical monuments retained by the Heritage Mission, to be rehabilitated.

It will close its doors to the public for works the day after the Heritage Days this weekend.

According to Stéphane Bern, it has "a great need to be restored" and will benefit, thanks to the Heritage Mission, from 400,000 euros of investment, to which will be added funding released by the communities.

The "Monsieur Patrimoine" selected this house for the visit of Emmanuel Macron, because "it is the ideal year to pay homage to Proust between the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1871 and the 100th anniversary of his death" in 1922 .

After the visit, the Macron couple attended a reading of extracts from "In search of lost time" by the actor Guillaume Gallienne, in front of a hundred residents of Illiers-Combray.

President Emmanuel Macron, his wife Brigitte Macron and Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot at the Marcel Proust museum "La Maison de Tante Léonie", September 15, 2021 in Illiers-Combray, Eure-et-Loir Yoan VALAT POOL / AFP

Launched in 2017, the Heritage Mission has made it possible, in particular with the FDJ's Loto du Patrimoine, to mobilize 131 million euros to renovate 18 emblematic sites per year (one per region) and around a hundred other sites.

In total, the government has devoted 336 million euros to heritage (excluding major works such as those of the Grand Palais), visited each year by 89 million visitors.

And of the two billion euros of the recovery plan devoted to culture, 614 million should be dedicated to heritage.

© 2021 AFP