the demolition of the Pavillon des Sources at the Institut Curie in Paris is suspended, at the request of the Minister of Culture

On the Institut Curie site in Paris, the demolition of the Pavillon des Sources was due to begin next Monday.

The Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak announced Friday on X (formerly Twitter), having obtained from Thierry Philip, president of the Institut Curie, “that he suspends the demolition of the Pavillon des Sources”one of the buildings of the Institut Curie, planned from Monday January 8 in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.

This suspension will allow “give yourself time to examine, with the stakeholders and my colleague Sylvie Retailleau (the Minister of Higher Education and Research), any possible alternative”adds the Minister of Culture.

The Institut Curie had obtained a demolition permit from the City of Paris, on March 24, 2023, to construct a larger building there, as part of a project to expand the Pierre-et-Marie-Curie-Val campus. -of-Grace. Contacted Friday January 5 by franceinfo, the Institut Curie believes that the meeting at the Ministry of Culture was “fine”that the project “is not buried”but he must “evolve”.

“We discussed with serenity the complex debate around an essential scientific project, which must remain on the Sainte-Geneviève mountain and the memorial issue which arouses emotion today”added for his part Professor Thierry Philip, in a press release published by the Institut Curie on Friday.

“We are aware of the emotion aroused among memory defenders.”

The Curie Institute

in a press release

He also wishes to recall “that Marie Curie’s laboratory is not the Pavillon des Sources, but the Curie Pavilion, the current museum open free to the public”. Marie Curie “never worked” within the Pavillon des Sources, it was “a former radioactive waste storage site, 100 m², now empty”specifies the foundation created in memory of the physicist.

Thursday January 4, Stéphane Bern said to himself “mobilized” against the demolition of this establishment, calling on Emmanuel Macron to preserve this “symbolic heritage”. “If an alternative solution can be found on the Sainte Geneviève mountain, the Institut Curie will accept it”warns the foundation which manages the site. “If this is not the case, we will have to settle the debate between memory and living science calmly”.

The Pavillon des Sources constitutes the large ensemble of the Institut Curie with the Pavillon Pasteur and the Pavillon Curie. In the heart of the Latin Quarter, on the Sainte-Geneviève mountain, this small beige brick building built in the 20th century was used to store raw materials useful for the research of Marie Curie, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. The adjoining garden, “composed of century-old lime trees and plane trees, wanted and planted by Marie Curie herself, is also concerned” by this project, Senator Catherine Dumas (LR), opposed to the demolition project, had alerted in April 2023.