Center Pompidou: Sophie Binet provides her “full support” to the strikers

Sophie Binet came on Thursday to provide her “full support” to the striking employees of the Center Pompidou, worried about their jobs and missions in view of the closure of their institution for five years.

The general secretary of the CGT said she wanted, through this support, “to avoid a strategy of shock: that this closure (of the great museum of modern art in Paris) is not an opportunity for the management to roll back social rights” , applauded by around a hundred employees gathered in a general assembly in the presence of the inter-union (CGT, CFDT, FO, Unsa, SUD).

Staff at the Center Pompidou, also called Beaubourg, fear for their jobs and their missions. Some of them have been on strike since October 16, causing several days of closure. They continued their movement until January 15, for lack of sufficient “guarantees” concerning the maintenance of the employment ceiling and the “non-outsourcing” of their missions. On Thursday, employees were called by the unions to close their establishment again “during the Christmas holidays”.

Management and unions have so far failed to agree on a draft memorandum of understanding governing jobs during and after the closure of the Center, negotiated since October 18. A new “negotiations” meeting was requested “as quickly as possible” by the unions.

The staff affected by the move, 480 out of a thousand in total, must be redeployed to the Grand Palais (under construction and due to reopen in 2024), to collection storage premises north of Paris, to administrative premises near Beaubourg as well as the library moved to a building in the center of Paris, then, for around fifty of them, to a new center in Massy (Paris region) supposed to open in the summer of 2026.

Questioned by AFP, management assured that it had “committed to requesting the maintenance of the establishment's employment ceiling each year, within the framework of the finance laws”. She reaffirmed her wish “to sign (the) memorandum of understanding as quickly as possible in order to be able to calmly continue its mission of welcoming the public and preparing for the work period”.

Inaugurated almost half a century ago, the Center Pompidou, which is among the most important modern and contemporary art museums in the world, must gradually close from 2025 for major asbestos removal and renovation work, planned until 2030.