Since April 4, 2009, members of the European Union who are under 26 years of age and who live on French territory, have free admission to French museums and monuments. This decision, initiated under the former  French minister of culture Christine Albanel, concerned institutions that belong to the responsibility of the ministry of culture, with the exception of the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais where only temporary exhibitions are being shown.

Museums belonging to other ministries were not affected by this regulation. Nevertheless, the ministry for higher education and research decided to apply the same rules for the Museum of Arts and Crafts (Musée des Arts et métiers), but not for the Museum of Natural History (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle)

After protests by the organization SOS Racisme, claiming that this decision leads to discrimination, the new French ministry of culture Frédéric Mitterrand has now enlarged the range of this free admission programme. Any resident of the European Union under the age of 26 can now have free access to the permanent exhibitions of French national museums and monuments - regardless of his or her nationality.

Since April, an increase of young visitors of 15% has already been measurable. According to research of the French National Assembly, the initiative will cost around 30 million Euro per year, 11 million of which to the account of the Musée du Louvre alone.

Claudia Schipper

Read more on artclair.com:

http://www.artclair.com/site/archives/docs_article/66537/le-ministere-de-la-culture-elargie-la-gratuite-des-musees-aux-moins-de-26-ans-residant-dans-l-union-europeenne.php