Endangered by a financial crisis, the Champigny-sur-Marne institution created a subscription on Friday to replenish its coffers.
Resist for the National Resistance Museum. As we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Liberation, the institution in Champigny (Val-de-Marne) is under threat of closure. To save it, management launched a large subscription on June 14 which was signed by several public figures.
“All those who cherish the history and values of the Resistance” are called to mobilize. The subscription, issued by the Association of Friends of the National Resistance Museum in Champigny-sur-Marne (AAMRN), has already garnered the support of actress Ariane Ascaride (who played a professor participating in the International Resistance Competition with his students in The heirs), the president of the highway company of the North and East of France Alain Minc – son of the resistance fighter Joseph Minc -, Élisabeth Helfer-Aubrac, daughter of the resistance fighters Raymond and Lucie Aubrac, the mathematician Cédric Villani, the president of honor of the Human Rights League Patrick Baudoin and the slammer Grands Corps Malade.
“In cessation of payments”
Originally designed by members of the Resistance, the institution is “a major player in the memory of the Resistance (…) [qui] has been working since 1985 to transmit the memory and values of the Resistance,” recalls the association of Friends of the museum in its press release. The Friends of the Museum manage the entire gallery, which maintains a collection “of more than a million pieces on the French Resistance”including the last letter of Guy Môquet (1924-1941) and the original of the poem Freedom by Paul Éluard (1895-1952).
Since its installation in 2020 along the Marne, it has recorded an increase in attendance of 35%. But the National Resistance Museum is facing a “financial crisis” due to the elimination of municipal and territorial subsidies in recent years: “Despite a significant increase in attendance, the financial support of new local authorities and the numerous projects initiated by the museum for 2024, a year with a strong memorial component, the AAMRN could be forced to declare itself in cessation of payments, which would mean the closure of the museum, alert the authors of the subscription. According to information from Parisian , The association would be missing 85,000 euros to complete the 2024 budget. And no exhibition has been launched for several months. Already in 2017, due to lack of financial resources, the museum had set up a first public subscription which allowed it to raise more than 20,000 euros.
Letter to Emmanuel Macron
Within the departmental council, the Val-de-Marne en commun (PCF) opposition is mobilizing “to obtain the necessary departmental support for the MRN (Musée de la Résistance nationale) of Champigny-sur-Marne”, they wrote on euros last year. Contacted by The Parisianthe department specifies that it has “voted for a subsidy of 100,000 euros during the Standing Committee on June 10. This payment does not prejudge the total amount of the annual subsidy granted to the museum, as specified in a letter from the President of the department to Mr. Georges Duffau-Epstein, dated May 30, 2024.
The president of the association, Georges Duffau-Epstein, appealed to the President of the Republic to release this “a key player in the cultural influence of Val-de-Marne” turmoil. The son of Joseph Epstein, leader of the Francs-tireurs et Partisans (FTP) in the Ile-de-France region, arrested at the end of 1943 and executed at Mont Valérien (Hauts-de-Seine) on April 11, 1944, was present alongside the head of state during the pantheonization ceremony of Missak and Mélinée Manouchian, on February 21, 80 years after his death. “I wrote to President Macron, in a personal capacity,” confided Georges Duffau-Epstein to Parisianbefore adding: “We have also written a new sponsorship file, with which we will convince companies to help us.”
For Francis Malavergne, son of the resistance fighter Émile Boucher who went underground in the surroundings of Périgueux after being requisitioned by the German compulsory labor service (STO), the museum must not disappear. “I think this place represents our roots, says Francis Malavergne. It must continue to exist for all these fighters who sacrificed themselves for our country.” The 79-year-old adds that he would be inclined to make a donation to the Champigny-sur-Marne institution.