After seven months of vacation, the position of Cultural Advisor to Emmanuel Macron has finally been filled.
According to the Politico site, which revealed the information on Monday morning, it is Philippe Bélaval, current president of the Center for National Monuments and traveling companion of the President of the Republic, who will take up the gauntlet, from January 23.
He will replace Rima Abdul Malak, appointed Minister of Culture, and with whom he has good relations.
"You are a monument among our monuments"
had fun Emmanuel Macron, last September, when he had promoted the senior official commander of the Legion of Honor, from the grand salon of the Hôtel de la Marine, in Paris .
We can not say it better.
Aged 67, Philippe Bélaval will end his career at the Élysée, after having
"roamed"
in cultural circles, literally jumping from one post to another.
Director General of the Paris Opera in 1990, then of the National Library of France between 1994 and 1998, he took that of the Archives of France, until 2000. Then passed through the administrative courts of appeal of Bordeaux, then of Versailles, he became Director General of Heritage in 2010, before joining the Center des Monuments Nationaux two years later.
With this background, Philippe Bélaval has a solid network, a certain erudition and political sense.
Which makes him a good character in court.
Read alsoCentre des monuments nationaux: Philippe Bélaval renewed for two years
Under its "
era
", the Center des Monuments, which covers more than 100 sites, including Mont Saint-Michel, Sainte Chapelle, the Hôtel de la Marine, the ramparts of Carcassonne and the Château de Rambouillet, has taken a step forward .
Every year, 10 million visitors now come to the CMN sites, which have been opened up to contemporary art and a good level of summer programming.
But it is mainly three monuments, the Hôtel de la Marine, the Panthéon and the castle of Villers-Cotterêts, in the Aisne, which allowed the President of the Republic to see this high official at work.
In 2022, and after 5 years of work, Philippe Bélaval allowed the President to inaugurate the Hôtel de la Marine, in Paris, after having thought of a new destiny for this former royal furniture storage that Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to sell to the private sector. .
At the Panthéon, a Republican monument highly prized by Emmanuel Macron, Philippe Bélaval set to music the pantheonizations of Simone Veil and Joséphine Baker, as well as the entry of Maurice Genevoix and Those of 14. Remains, in front of him, Villers-Cotterêts, destined to become a city of La Francophonie, after 150 million euros of work.
We do not yet know the roadmap given by Emmanuel Macron to his new adviser, for the next 4 years, apart from the management of the reopening of Notre Dame de Paris, scheduled for December 2024. There is no longer any question to launch major works, but no doubt the president will want to continue to exist on a ground allowing him to approach the history of France and the question of identity.
