by Ric Erickson

Number 1.35:- Metropole Paris - Monday, 21. October 1996:- I didn't miss the report in Le Parisien about ten days ago; I just didn't register it, except in some obscure closet in my brain. When I went to retrieve the written report, it had suffered a rare fate - tossed out and gone forever.

The report went something like this: 'President Jacques Chirac's First Monumental Project,' and it was about his acceptance of a 'Arts Premiers' Commission report, that he had ordered - which had been delivered in August.

The President of France is an 'ethnic' fan with a long acquaintance of Africa. The Commission therefore proposed the creation of a new museum, of world caliber and scope - that brings together the ethnographic collection of the Musée de l'Homme with the collection of the Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, which covers the geographical areas of Africa, the Pacific and the part of Asia not included in the Musée Guimet.

The present Musée de l'Homme is lodged on the top floors of the Passy Wing of the Palais Chaillot and the Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie is at the Porte Dorée.

This ambitious project - with a reported budget of 800 million francs - has selected the Passy Wing of the Palais Chaillot as its new home. At the prestigious and central location of Trocadéro, beside the place of the Rights of Man, it will become a symbol of humanism and learning.

The new museum will require a minimum of 23,000 square metres, with another 8,000 for underground reserves.

The new museum will also require that the Musée de la Marine find other lodgings.

It is one of the leading Marine Museums of the world, if not the foremost - which has been installed at its present location since 1943, which is in the middle of its own renovation and expansion - has been given a budget of a paltry 200 million francs - to find a suitable new location in downtown Paris.

Not only this, but the budget also has to include the cost of the move. At the Marine Museum on Wednesday, I was told that some of the ship models - up to five metres long by five metres high - had been brought into the museum - by knocking holes in the walls of the building.

And, some of these models are 200 years old. As ship models, made mostly out of wood, their hulls may survive a move, but it is doubtful that their masts and rigging will. In today's world, there simply are no experts available to re-rig these models.

The Marine Museum, which is under the direction of the Defense Ministry, has requested Mr. Jean-François Deniau, a supporter of the President's RPR party, to find a solution and report on it before the end of the year.

It is too bad I inadvertently threw away the original press report because if I remember correctly, a considerable part of the Paris cultural-museum-research-university clique had something negative to say about the melange-aspect of the proposed new museum. Any big deal like this divides interested parties into clans of pressure groups, and this is especially so in Paris.

Meanwhile, the maritime community is no small affair either and they are mobilizing - in favor of stopping the plan, so the Musée de la Marine can stay where it has been for 53 years.

Besides the current temporary exhibition 'Le Temps des Clippers,' the next major event at the Marine Museum is its 35th annual Salon de la Marine, which will run from Thursday, 19. December until 23. February 1997.

Musée de la Marine Web site.

Some Events:

Exposition: 'De Clovis à Dagobert'

Around 496 AD, Childéric's son Clovis converted to Christianity and sealed an alliance between the German kings and the Gallo-Roman Christians who dominated the cities of Gaul; Lutèce became Paris and after the conquest of the south of Gaul in 508, Clovis chose Paris as the 'seat of his kingdom.'

Hôtel de Ville de Paris, Salle Saint-Jean
Until Sunday, 5. January 1997.
Daily except Mondays and public holidays, from 11:00 to 19:00. No entry charge.
See also 'Clovis et Son Temps' in the Salle d'Accueil at the Hôtel de Ville, from 26. November until 5. January, from 9:30 until 18:00, daily except Sundays and public holidays. No entry charge.

Photo Expo: Andre Malraux sous le Regard de Giesele Freund

A series of realistic portraits of the French writer and statesman, taken between 1935 and 1965 by the French photographer who believed "that everything is summed up in the human face." At the Jeu de Paume, closed Mondays. Until Sunday, 1. December. Tel.: 01 47 03 12 50.

One of a series of billboards currently in the métro announces the 20th anniversary of André Malraux's death. The date will be Saturday, 23. November for whatever ceremonies that are planned. Each billboard has a separate text, and this one's is, "Les idées ne sont pas faites pour être pensées mais, vécues."