After a three-month strike – the longest ever at Paris's Centre Pompidou – the museum's management and two major labor unions, CFDT and Force Ouvrière, signed an agreement on Monday, January 29. "As soon as I arrived at the Ministry of Culture, I wanted to put an end to this stalemate," said Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who was appointed on January 11. "One hundred days on strike is unprecedented in the history of the Centre Pompidou. I would like to thank the staff and management for their spirit of responsibility."
"This protocol is essential to ensure the protection of our colleagues during the renovation of the Centre Pompidou," said Alexis Fritche, CFDT-Culture general secretary, praising "the involvement of Rachida Dati and her staff, a decisive factor in the success of these negotiations."
Since October 16, strikers had stepped up the pressure to secure job guarantees during the Centre Pompidou's long closure for renovations, from 2025 to 2030. Management had announced ways of redeploying activity. The Bibliothèque Publique d'Information (BPI) will be relocated to the Lumière building, near Bercy Village, in Paris's 12th arrondissement. An agreement to be signed in the near future with the Grand Palais will enable exhibitions to be held there on 2,800 square meters.
The employees to be assigned there will take over the work of staff who, until now, have been outsourced. Other employees will be transferred to the new facility in Massy, a southern suburb of Paris, scheduled to open in summer 2026. The space, mainly devoted to the storage of reserves shared with the Musée Picasso, will offer two annual exhibitions based on the collections, as well as a program of live performances, over an area of some 2,500 square meters. Under the umbrella title "Constellations," exhibitions will also be held throughout France.
For the employees worried about their status during this period, the details of this redeployment remained unclear. "Five years of closure is a long time in an employee's career," summed up Philippe Mahé, secretary of the Force Ouvrière union. The text of the agreement signed on Monday, which Le Monde was able to consult, preserves their public-law status during the closure and when it reopens. No employees on fixed-term or indefinite-term contracts will be made redundant during the construction work, and the company is proposing to give up certain precarious contracts. The document also provides for an increase in the training budget and promises support for employees.
You have 50% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.