The National Monuments Centre criticized by the Senate for its sharp increase in expenditure

The costs don’t stop. A report from the Senate Finance Committee, published on Wednesday, criticizes the sharp increase in spending by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN), which « have more than doubled in ten years »weakening its economic model.

The CMN manages 110 monuments, including the Arc de Triomphe, the Pantheon, the Sainte-Chapelle, the city of Carcassonne and Mont-Saint-Michel, as well as lesser-known monuments in small towns or very rural sites.

“Although the CMN’s revenues are very dynamic, they are struggling to keep up with the evolution of expenditure, which is rising sharply: + 130 % between 2014 and 2023, representing a gap of 150 million euros in annual expenditure”write socialist senator Vincent Eblé and Macronist Didier Rambaud in this report, warning against a weakening of the economic model based on the pooling of resources.

« This upward trajectory was not interrupted during the health crisis: the total amount of expenditure per year by the network doubled between 2017 and 2023. A large part of this increase results from an acceleration of investments and the implementation of various major projects, in particular that of the renovation of the Hôtel de la Marine on the Place de la Concorde in Paris and that of the Cité de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts. »they specify.

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40 million euros in aid

The CMN has benefited from exceptional credits of 40 million euros as part of the recovery plan in order to finance 14 restoration operations in the region. In addition, there are specific credits for the Château de Villers-Cotterêts amounting to 124 million euros.

Financing that « is more a matter of political expediency than of substantive justification, without calling into question the need for the work carried out », pin the senators. Between 2014 and 2023, the CMN’s resources increased by 157%, a total of 220 million euros and an additional 135 million euros in ten years.

Thanks to ticket revenues, the CMN is self-financing up to 50% of its budget. The funding provided annually by the State, which has increased by 55% over the period, represents in 2023 a little more than half of the CMN’s revenues, compared to only 17% in 2014.
In total, Parisian monuments alone represent 46% of total attendance, more than 11.6 million visitors in 2023.

Among their recommendations, the authors suggest increasing the price of the entrance ticket, by an average of 5 euros, « two euros lower than the average rate set by other heritage operators ».