President Macron is expected to hand the keys of the Château de Versailles, France’s most glittering cultural jewel, to a little qualified former minister — fuelling charges that, monarch-like, he is showering favours on former members of his administration, reports The Times.
The office of president of the former royal palace and its estate, a museum visited by nearly 20 million people a year and a venue for grand state occasions, is one of the most desirable of dozens of prestigious posts in the gift of France’s president.
After months of behind-the-scenes competition, the Élysée Palace is reported to be hesitating between Jean-Michel Blanquer, who lost his post as education minister in June, and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, a conservative politician who backed Macron and has served as tourist minister. Among others in the running until this month was Pierre-Olivier Costa, the chief of staff to Brigitte Macron, the president’s wife, according to Le Monde.
The imminent appointment is likely to confirm the president’s monarchical prerogative “to the point of giving command of the palace to someone with a political profile who has never held the least post in a cultural institution”, Le Figaro said. The news website La Tribune de l’Art said: “It is true that in our republican monarchy, which is more monarchy than republic, places have to be found for people who are no longer ministers, even at the expense of museums and the heritage.”