Will the Palais de la Découverte have to move?

Will the Palais de la Découverte have to pack its bags? The Parisian science museum was forced to postpone its soft opening last June due to a delay in the renovation work that began in 2020. In fact, employees fear that the Grand Palais will take over their historic building.

A petition to keep the Palais de la Découverte in its historic premises, within the Grand Palais in Paris, has exceeded 107,000 signatures in three weeks.

"For several months, the Ministry of Culture (one of the two supervisory bodies of the Palais de la Découverte, along with the Ministry of Research, editor's note) and the management of the Grand Palais RMN have been questioning its relocation in an opaque and incomprehensible manner," lamented the employees behind the petition during a rally in front of the Academy of Sciences.

The "situation is blocked" and the reopening of the Palais de la Découverte, closed for renovation work since 2020, "postponed indefinitely," they denounced, pointing to the risk of seeing "the almost 20 million euros already invested in the project, as well as years of work, thrown away."

Concerns about the future of the Palais de la Découverte have sparked a strong movement of support in the scientific community in France and abroad.

Over the past five years, the teams have developed a "completely renewed scientific program," which addresses "the major issues of today," such as artificial intelligence, climate change, "research currently underway," and which is "ready to be deployed," emphasized astrophysicist Karim Benabed, one of the nine scientific commissioners appointed by the CNRS.

The Palais de la Découverte is "an incredible machine for triggering vocations" and "you have to have a completely blind government not to realize the fundamental importance of triggering vocations in science," said mathematician Michel Talagrand, winner of the prestigious Abel Prize.

Last week, the Paris Council also asked the government to provide "firm guarantees" and a "precise timetable for reopening."