With French Prime Minister Michel Barnier having finally presented a new government to President Emanuel Macron, Rachida Dati is set to retake her place as minister of culture. France has had five ministers of culture in six years. Dati's previous term only lasted six months, from January to July 2024. So, on the one hand, her re-nomination can be framed as some much needed continuity—a remedy against what one trade unionist recently described as a veritable “waltz of the ministers” in “the Airbnb of Rue de Valois”.
On the other hand, Dati's six-month track record is lacklustre, consisting of a lot of big plans, with, as yet, not much to show for them. Of course, the challenges she faces are considerable and include shepherding the nation's publicly owned audiovisual media and live cultural offerings through increasingly hardcore budget negotiations.
But there is also a list of dossiers so poorly handled that the journalist Xavier de Jarcy has termed it “a poisoned heritage”. This contradiction in terms is highlighted by the extent to which it is the country’s cultural and built heritage—one of the larger remits of the ministry—that is bearing the brunt.
First is the ongoing polemic around new stained-glass windows for Notre-Dame. On the eve of her departure in July, Dati issued a statement reaffirming that this commission was going ahead. Initiated in December 2023 by the Archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, and promptly gaining presidential support, the plan is to commission a contemporary artist, in collaboration with a master glass painter, to replace six windows in the southern side chapels. At the time, Macron said that doing so was about our century “taking its place amid the many others that feature within the works of this cathedral”.
Stained-glass survivors
Of course, the salient problem is that, unlike the spire, which had to be replaced because it collapsed in the 2019 fire, the stained-glass windows in question were not damaged. They stand intact, as they have done since the master glass painter Alfred Gérente created them in 1865 under the watchful eye of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc in the context of his fabled 19th-century restoration.
Viollet-le-Duc occupies such a prominent position in French architectural history, you don’t really need to spell out his name in full. And not wanting to replace him is precisely the reason why the starchitect Jean Nouvel, among others, did not submit new ideas for how to replace that collapsed spire. In the weeks after the fire, Nouvel implored the government to not be too hasty: “Give historians and experts time to make their diagnostic before deciding on the monument’s future.”
Crucially, these windows stand protected. The cathedral was listed as a historic monument in 1862. As such, the government is legally obligated to consult the Commission nationale du patrimoine et de l’architecture (CNPA) on any changes. Which it did—and promptly ignored it.
The CNPA voted unanimously against replacing the windows. That didn’t stop Dati from ploughing ahead. She did acknowledge the vote but simply said that the CNPA could vote again when the finalist is chosen and submits their designs in November.
The problem then is not whether the shortlisted contemporary artists should take their place beside the cathedral’s 13th-century roses, 18th-century medallions, Viollet-le-Duc restorations and 20th-century additions. Rather, it is whether the French government takes seriously the principle of cultural heritage protection: whether it is, as Nouvel urged, heeding experts.
The fears that it might not be are underscored by other decisions. In May, experts including the CNPA voted against breaking up the early 20th-century social housing estate of La Butte Rouge, in Châtenay-Malabry. They requested, instead, that the government list the estate in its entirety as a remarkable heritage site. Julien Lacaze, the president of Sites & Monuments, promptly declared “Victory at La Butte Rouge”. But on 5 July, Dati signed off on new boundaries for the site that, as De Jarcy notes, in effect grant permission to developers to destroy around half of the buildings.
Weakened by austerity
Almost as soon as she acceded to her post in early 2024, Dati was confronted with massive budget cuts: more than €200m in austerity measures, half of which concerned heritage, specifically. This weakened her position right out of the gate, throwing doubts over her ability to bring to fruition any projects she had initiated.
In January she announced a plan, titled Le printemps de la ruralité, to boost cultural offerings in rural areas. By July, pundits were asking where the €98m she had promised over three years would come from.
Early on, Dati also tabled the idea of a new architectural strategy and further investment in heritage restoration across the board. “Old heritage is often only restored after a drama (a fire, a flood),” she said. “What we really want to see is a policy that supports restoration and upkeep in the long term.” In particular, she announced plans to implement more adequate energy ratings for old buildings—what one senator termed “le petit patrimoine”, the country’s vernacular architecture—to avoid owners carrying out damaging renovations to meet them, when not destroying them altogether.
You can’t argue with those sentiments. But six months is far too short to get anything done, unless you do so blindly, ignoring expertise and plumping instead for political expediency. One only has to look at the newly unveiled restoration of the old citadel of Carcassone—another chantier that counts Viollet-le-Duc as an earlier custodian—to be reminded of quite how much investment and attention is needed to keep the country’s treasures alive. To restore just 300m of fortifications took 31 months, €5.6m and, if you think about it, Covid, since €4.5m of that sum was provided as part of the government’s pandemic recovery plan.
The ministry of culture itself states on its website that France has “the privilege and the responsibility” to protect more pre-1789 stained glass windows than all other countries of the world combined. And its post-revolutionary haul is equally “immense”. That’s just one small facet of the nation’s built heritage.
Will Dati, this second time round, be better equipped—and backed, politically and financially, by Barnier's wider government—to adequately look after all of it? There might be a bigger problem: some warn that her long-stated ambition to run for the 2026 Paris mayoral elections means she barely has a year, before she has to quit the ministry altogether in order to campaign. How much, realistically, can she get done in 12 months?