Clouds are gathering over Yves Juhel, mayor of Menton, a Mediterranean town on France's border with Italy. A member of the conservative Les Républicains party, Juhel is already facing embezzlement allegations and is due to appear before a criminal court in Marseille in October. The mayor saw his majority on the city council collapse in June, when five councilors joined the opposition. But it is an entirely different affair that is currently rocking the city's administration.

On July 11, the Wunderman Foundation – created by Belgian-born American philanthropist Severin Wunderman (1938-2008) – sent a formal notice to Juhel, demanding the cancellation of a nearly 20-year-old donation of nearly 2,000 works by French poet and artist Jean Cocteau (1889-1963). At stake is the city's failure to fulfill its obligation to permanently and perpetually display what is the world's largest Cocteau collection.

The entire collection was housed, starting in 2011, in a museum designed by French architect Rudy Ricciotti. But since Storm Adrian flooded the building in 2018, its doors have remained firmly shut. The closure also stems from an ongoing dispute between the city, which estimates the repair costs at over €3 million, and its insurer, Smacl, which is only willing to cover half of that amount.

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