September - October 2025
In recent weeks, the Mission de Préfiguration has seen a major change in the work it has been carrying out for five years now. At the beginning of September, we were informed that the Musée-mémorial du terrorisme would no longer be located at the Ecole de Plein Air de Suresnes, given the restoration costs that this listed building would require in the current budgetary context.
As a result, we have been asked to position ourselves on a new location based on four proposals from among the Ministry of the Armed Forces' holdings, two in Greater Paris and two in Paris itself. A final decision will be taken shortly by the President of the Republic.
While we regret the loss of the Suresnes site, to which we were particularly attached, in view of the exceptional character of the building and its social and architectural history, it appears that among the proposed sites, one fulfills the necessary conditions to continue with the same ambition the work already undertaken for the museum and memorial at significantly lower restoration costs and for significantly shorter construction times.
That's why we now hope that this change will be followed by concrete progress in the realization of the Museum-Memorial of Terrorism, whose achievements are no longer in need of demonstration, whether in terms of our definitive museographic program currently being finalized, our numerous collections, the reflections for the memorial or even the knowledge about terrorism that we are helping to shape.
Proof of this was the holding on September 25 of our second international seminar devoted to historical research on terrorism. Organized at the Collège des Bernardins, the day-long event brought together a wide range of speakers, including historians, researchers, victims, jurists, lawyers and directors of memorial museums around the world. They all shared their visions, placing the future memorial museum at the heart of the debate on terrorism. As last year, we also took advantage of this event to present the breadth of our collections to a wide audience in the temporary exhibition "Objects for Witnesses" designed especially for the occasion.
Whether on an intellectual or cultural level, the future Musée-mémorial du terrorisme today stands out as a major player in dealing with this phenomenon.
He is regularly invited to speak at international forums. This has been the case twice in recent weeks, with Elisabeth Pelsez's participation in Brussels at the final conference of the European Centre of Expertise for Victims of Terrorism on September 12, where she presented the main guidelines of France's remembrance policy, of which MMT is the high point. As well as in London, where she took part with Lena Fahre, Director of the July 22nd Center in Oslo and Cliff Chanin, Director of the 9/11 Museum in New York in the International Security Expo 2025 to participate in a panel on comparisons of Memorial Museums around the world.
Similar to this approach, we are currently preparing two new exhibitions, one on the gates of Paris City Hall, the other on the platforms of the République metro station on line 11. They will be on view in November.
On the program of this 12th newsletter, you'll discover the latest news that has kept the prefiguration mission busy, including our international seminar, an interview with Marc Hecker, executive director of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and member of our scientific and cultural council, a review of the exhibition November 13, 2015: what does science have to say about the attacks? at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie or a presentation of an object from our collections.
The entire Mission de Préfiguration team hopes you enjoy reading.