フランスの美術館が若年層の入館料を無料に？
２５歳未満は美術館無料に 仏大統領、新施設も発表
【パリ１３日共同】フランスのサルコジ大統領は１３日、南部ニームで演説し、学校の教師と２５歳未満の青少年を対象にルーブル美術館やオルセー美術館など国立の美術館、博物館の入場料を無料にすると発表した。
無料開放は４月４日から実施される。他国から観光で訪れる若者が対象となるかどうかには触れなかった。
大統領は「すべての若者と教師への無料開放で美術館が苦境に陥ることはない。逆にチャンスとなる。美術館に通う習慣を持った子どもたちが大人になったとき、彼らが自分の子どもたちを連れてくるだろうからだ」と語った。
大統領はまた、フランスの歴史をテーマにした博物館を新たに建設すると表明。「フランス史の象徴的な場所に建てる」と述べたが、具体的な建設地には言及しなかった。
1月13日のロイターの記事から
Sarkozy proposes museum of French history
By Yann Le Guernigou
NIMES, France (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Tuesday he wanted to create a museum of French history, following in the footsteps of predecessors who have left their mark on the country's cultural landscape.
He said the proposed "Maison de l'histoire de France", would bring museums, monuments and research centers together and would help organize major popular exhibitions on historical subjects.
"The idea is not to create an official history or to keep up arguments over how things are remembered but to develop a scientific, comparative and pluralist approach," he said in his New Year's address on cultural policy.
Sarkozy gave few details about the proposed museum, which would be housed at a symbolic site and would match the German Historical Museum in Berlin, launched amid much controversy in 1987 and now a popular monument in the German capital.
The project would follow in a well-established tradition of French presidents who have left landmarks ranging from the futuristic art gallery named after Georges Pompidou, the Louvre pyramid commissioned by Francois Mitterrand or the Quai Branly museum supported by Jacques Chirac.
Some of Sarkozy's previous initiatives on historical memory have not been successes. He set off a storm of protest in 2008 with a proposal, later scrapped, that schoolchildren should "adopt" a Jewish child victim of the Holocaust to raise their awareness.
On Tuesday, he announced measures to encourage cultural activities, including free museum entry for the under-25s and said art should be "at the heart of the school education system" in order to "enlarge the size of the public for culture".
Sarkozy also proposed setting up a special council on artistic creation, which he would chair alongside Culture Minister Christine Albanel and film producer Marin Karmitz.
The body would decide priorities for public arts funding "in close cooperation with artists, professionals and the public".
Sarkozy's most recent cultural initiative has been to ban evening advertising on state-owned television, a move bitterly attacked by critics who say it will weaken the financial foundations of public broadcasting.
The government has pledged to make up for the hundreds of millions of euro in lost revenues and Sarkozy hailed the move as an important step toward improving the quality of French television.
"Giving the public service broadcast sector the means to support its specific character will certainly be one of the major reforms of my term in office," he said.
(Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Andrew Roche)
とりあえず，メモのみ。
