Emmanuel Macron will inaugurate on Monday the International City of the French Language in the restored castle of Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne), his major cultural project launched in 2017, the Élysée announced Thursday in a press release. It will be “the first cultural institution dedicated to the French language”, rejoices the Élysée which speaks of “a common home offered to all French speakers”.
It was in this castle that Francis I issued the ordinance of 1539 which made French the official language for all administrative acts of the kingdom. But the former royal residence transformed into barracks, a “begging depot”, then a retirement home in the 19th century, had been left abandoned. In this town of 10,000 inhabitants, 80 km from Paris, the candidate Macron discovered in 2017 the state of disrepair of this Renaissance castle then, once elected, entrusted the Center of National Monuments (CMN) with its transformation into a “castle of the French-speaking world.
More than 210 million euros are invested, making it Emmanuel Macron’s second largest cultural project after the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris. According to the Élysée, the project is also intended to be political to make culture an “antidote to the feeling of abandonment” in a territory marked by deindustrialization and far-right voting. National Rally (RN) elected official Franck Briffaut has been mayor since 2014 and Marine Le Pen came first in the second round of the last presidential election.
Made up of a tour route, exhibition spaces, artist and researcher residences, the City hopes to attract 200,000 visitors per year. In 2024, it will host the Francophonie summit, to which the leaders of 88 states are invited. The inauguration was scheduled for October 19 but was postponed due to the funeral on the same day of Dominique Bernard, the French teacher killed in Arras by a young radicalized Islamist.
The Arras attack and the crisis in the Middle East shake up the president’s agenda. October 30 should have been devoted to the second edition of the “Saint-Denis meetings” between Emmanuel Macron and party leaders to talk about the extension of the referendum and decentralization. It should now take place in November but the date has not yet been set.