since it will mark the closure of work that I know has been particularly intense, both in the meetings you have held, but also, and more perhapsbe, in the nourished exchanges you have had together throughout these two months with each other. I must say that you have been exemplary and I would even say fully “citizens” in your desire to have a dialogue without prejudice and to bring to fruition a shared project that you will be debating again today.
As always, the form of the debate has determined its substance. To these republican values that you have embodied in your discussions, respond the values that you have carried and the Minister of Culture is particularly sensitive to them.
The first of these values is what I would call a certain idea of heritage, a heritage that I want to call alive, even if it seems to shake up the titles of my department... You know that the protection of heritage has nothing to do with a simple conservation operation, which would only result in freezing the architectural landscape by wanting to fix it in a supposedly original state, “such that in itself finally eternity would not change it”., if I may parody the famous verse of Stéphane MALLARMÉ by reversing it.
The valorization of heritage – you will recall that I insisted on this term of valorization when opening your work – has no real meaning unless it is inserted into the life of the city, if she knows how to embrace the aspirations of those who have chosen to live there as for those who are only passing through.
Your work has not only rejected the conflict between heritage and the life of the city, but has taken full account of the close and, to put it better, inseparable links between heritage – and, more broadly, cultural action – and sustainable development. It is sometimes said that everything is culture, and I am convinced that everything is also environment, in the broad sense of the term, including culture: there is a possible, desirable, and even a happy marriage if the initial contract is clear. The Grenelle of the environment encourages us to a form of cultural change that should help us to become aware of this profound union and that we must learn to reinforce, between the well-being that promises remarkable landscapes, historic districts, the most humble and prestigious monuments, and environmental requirements.
This living environment, this ecosystem, so to speak, no one has more legitimate and vigilant responsibility than those responsible for the ground, who are the strength of our territories. Fifty years after the creation of our Ministry, cultural decentralisation has been a magnificent success, but we must not stop there, and I believe that the State has every reason to trust even more local actors, especially elected officials.
As we know, the State assumes its responsibilities in the field of heritage. They are financial, they are also embodied by a body of civil servants and services in the regions, whose role I would like to commend once again, their successes, to recall the difficult and complex task of competence, in a context where, all too often, I know, Dedication must supplement the means.
But responsibility must not be synonymous with the solitary exercise of power, the rejection of dialogue and the neglect of existing powers. It is time to listen to what local elected representatives have to say, to gather their experiences, at the end of all these decades of decentralization, which have made them more attentive every day to cultural issues and which have made them, on this ground as on others, partners and so to speak peers of the State – “dukes and peers of France”, if you will…
Your commission therefore had the very complex and crucial task of inventing the rules of a heritage protection capable of combining its own objectives – protection, openness, cultural role – with those of local development and with the environmental ambitions we all share for our planet.
It commits us to better articulate our conceptions, our ideals, our universes to build a savoir-vivre that integrates all the components. It is about nothing less than building the heritage value of the 21st century.
I believe that you have found a balance that will allow us to overcome the reciprocal blockages we have all too often experienced in the past. If at least the rapporteur’s proposals win your support and that of your colleagues, you will be able to simplify and shorten the procedures, what is at stake for economic actors and the sign of a more modern and responsive administration.
The State will play its full part in this adventure.
The proposals put forward by the General Rapporteur after having heard you today receive your essential agreement to continue the process initiated, I will therefore launch myself, with all the staff concerned, and in liaison with the order and schools of architects, the large-scale construction site that will place the architects of the buildings of France at the forefront of this new strategy. I will install them in the new role that the Reformation assigns to them – that of true conductors rather than soloists, however virtuoso they may be. This project will be part of one of the main axes of a future architecture reform, which must place the need to value heritage at the heart of all architectural interventions.
Back to the immediate. On the basis of the agreement you have reached, we must propose the legislative amendments necessary for its speedy translation. Without prejudging your discussions, I propose that the joint committee be convened without delay before it has even become necessary. Since the Grenelle II Act is before the assembly today, I hope that, in agreement with their fellow senators here, the members will take the text and put it on the baptismal grounds of the act.
From now on, we will have to prepare the necessary regulations, as well as the instruction by which I will guide the new course of administrative action, with all the necessary consultations to ensure that it is well understood, well accepted, and that all actors can adhere to it without reservation.
I’m worried about keeping my word. I will therefore ask our General Rapporteur to report back to us on the progress of the measures, on a semi-annual basis, by addressing his comments to all those present or represented here.
We must finally broaden our horizons. What we are starting today is a new chapter of French excellence recognized outside our borders. In Europe, we can be the bearers of a new “standard”, a development of heritage whose environmental efficiency and integration into a cultural and development dynamic will make all the originality. Why not see in it the premises of a new European impetus, inspired by these principles and methods? I invite you to think about it – as you have understood, we have not only put an end to a divergence together, we have exploited contrasts to give a new colour to our shared ambitions. a heritage that carries the promise of human life reconciled with its environment.
Discours
Address by Frédéric Mitterrand for the last session of the TUOT Commission on Architects of Buildings of France (ABF) and Protection Zones of Urban and Landscape Architectural Heritage (ZPPAUP)
Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends, I am extremely pleased to see you again today for this rather solemn meeting
Partager la page