2023-11-15 19:29:10
After a month of rotating strike at the Center Pompidou including eight days of closure, representatives of the inter-union (CFDT, CGT, FO, SUD, Unsa) were to call on staff to continue their mobilization, Thursday November 16. Certainly, the number of strikers has fallen sharply, the walkout of around twenty security agents being enough to close the doors. On the other hand, nearly 200 employees continue to regularly attend general meetings, a sign of continued serious concerns.
On Tuesday, a new negotiation meeting at the Ministry of Culture still failed to reach an agreement on the fate of the 480 employees of the Center Pompidou directly affected by its closure for work, from 2025 to 2030. The next day, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, sent a letter to all staff. She underlines the commitment of the State which will finance the asbestos removal and renovation work on the Beaubourg building to the tune of 260 million euros and which has increased the Center’s budget by 19% in 2024 (1). The minister above all recalls the guarantees already obtained by the unions: there will be no forced departure linked to the work, the fate of each agent will be the subject of individual support and the current level of remuneration will be maintained.
Nearly 38% of the agents concerned will be redeployed to the Grand Palaiswhich will host exhibitions at the Center Pompidou during its closure, 10% will join the future “reserve center” which will open in Massy, the others will be relocated to rented offices, or assigned to the security of the Center Pompidou construction site, Ircam and the Public Information Library, temporarily moved to the 12th arrondissement. Each employee will be guaranteed to find their position or a position corresponding to their skills upon reopening.
The guide-lecturers very worried
Discussions broke down over the unions’ demand to see the current employment ceiling maintained in 2030 with the guarantee that no activity will be outsourced. Job cuts are all the more feared as a quarter of the staff will have retired by this date. “It is too early to freeze the organization of the establishment in 2030. This will have to be adjusted in line with the cultural project,” justifies Laurent le Bon, president of the Center Pompidou. Nathalie Ramos, general secretary of the CGT-culture, is worried: “We saw when the Picasso Museum reopened that there was a great temptation to outsource reception and security missions. It took a strike to prevent it. »
The Center’s thirty tour guides feel particularly threatened. “Last July, when we were presented with the staff situation during the closure of the establishment, we had simply disappeared! The Grand Palace does not want us because it has its own guides. And we still don’t know where we will be assigned…”, denounces Rose-Marie Stolberg, Unsa representative at the Center Pompidou.
The ministry’s refusal to open an ephemeral Center Pompidou
Another sticking point for the inter-union: the refusal of the ministry to redeploy during the work “the Center Pompidou on a unique site bringing together the diversity of activities that make it unique” : exhibitions, cinema, live shows, debates. “No tangible solution has emerged in Paris », Says Rima Abdul Malak in her letter. “Why did you rule out temporary accommodation at the Palais de Tokyo? »deplores for his part a curator of the National Museum of Modern Art.
The climate has become tense since November 8, after around 80 employees invaded the office of the president of the Center Pompidou with cries of “The Good, resignation” ! Cornered, he then promised the unions a meeting two days later, which ultimately… only Julie Narbey, the general director, attended. “We experienced his absence as an affront, a breach of trust,” says Alexis Fritche, general secretary of CFDT-culture.
The involvement of the president in negotiating the future of staff is all the more expected as the agreement with his general director does not seem obvious. “Julie Narbey herself applied to become president of the Center Pompidou in Paris. Since the arrival of Laurent Le Bon in 2021, she seems to be on the move. Result: the work suddenly went from three to five years with a dramatic lack of anticipation for the teams,” deplores a conservative.
Unease on the conservation side
To try to regain control, the president of the Center spoke directly to staff on November 14. He promised more dialogue. A response to those – many – who criticize him for his governance «omnipotent» ? On the conservation side, the unease is obvious. In 2021, while the appointment of Cécile Debray at the head of the National Museum of Modern Art seemed certain, this former curator of the Center Pompidou (now president of the Picasso Museum) was dismissed by Laurent Le Bon in favor of Xavier Rey, a specialist… from the 19th century.
“Since then, we have no longer debated programming. Our exhibition proposals are left unanswered. Some projects are entrusted to less experienced conservation officers or research officers,” testifies a conservative. Another accuses: “The exhibitions announced at the Grand Palais are worryingly lukewarm. It will be Matisse, Suzanne Valadon recently shown in Metz then in Nantes, and the trio Tinguely-Pontus Hulten-Niki de Saint Phalle.” Especially since ten years ago, the latter had already been the subject of a retrospective in this same place.
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