Just behind the Rue de Valois is the Hôtel de Brienne and the Hexagone Balard: after the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of the Armed Forces is the State's second-largest cultural player. Last weekend, the 41st edition of the European Heritage Days (JEP) was a great opportunity to find out, with almost 200,000 visitors (the figures for 2024 are not yet available, but there were more than 175,000 in 2023). These two days in a few figures: 95 sites open in mainland France and the overseas territories, including 36 exceptionally for the JEP; 800,000 exceptional cultural objects in the collections; 160 sites listed or registered as historic monuments, 10 national memorial sites and more than 80 memorial sites.
But throughout the rest of the year, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and its various components carry out a major task of disseminating defence culture to civilians of all ages. Behind the three emblematic national museums - the Army Museum, the Navy Museum and the Air and Space Museum -.., the fifteen or so arms museums spread across the country, present the history and heritage of the Troupes de marine (Fréjus, Var), the sous-officiers (Saint-Maixent-l'École, Deux-Sèvres) and the Troupes de montagne (Grenoble, Isère), for example.
Since the mid-1990s, these museums have opened year-round, attracting 300,000 visitors by 2023. "There are 90% of civilians and 10% of military personnel, a ratio that has been reversed in 30 years," explains Major Géraud Seznec, the Army's Heritage Advisor. Each museum is autonomous in its management and communication. For example, the French Army Light Aviation (ALAT) and Helicopter Museum in Dax (Landes) has doubled its attendance in one year, thanks to a bold promotion on the Internet. its social networkswith contributions from student pilots.
OVER 11 MILLION VISITORS EVERY YEAR
So much for the "small" museums specific to the Army. But if we include the three "big" national museums (2 million visitors in 2023, including 600,000 under 26s) and, above all, the memorial sites, the heritage managed by the Ministry of the Armed Forces attracts more than 11 million visitors every year!
These memorial sites, which account for the majority of visits to all the Ministry's sites, come under its Directorate for Remembrance, Culture and Archives (DMCA), which in turn comes under the authority of the General Secretariat for Administration (SGA). Since a ministerial decree in 2019, there have been 10 National memorial sites (HLMN)These are managed by the Office national des combattants et des victimes de guerre (ONACVG), another MinArm entity. Of the 10 HLMN, 5 have a reception area and a mediation centre: Mont-Valérien (Hauts-de-Seine), Montluc prison (Rhône), the Mont-Faron memorial (Var), the Struthof camp (Bas-Rhin) and the memorial to the martyrs of the deportation (on the Île de la Cité in Paris).
In addition to the 10 HLMN, there are 290 necropolises, 2,170 military squares in communal cemeteries, 47 military cemeteries in the overseas territories and 1,000 burial sites in more than 80 countries. In total, for the upkeep of these places of remembrance, the DMCA has allocated almost €16m in 2023 to the various players in the Ministry of the Armed Forces (ONaCVG in mainland France, headquarters for overseas territories and defence attachés in embassies abroad).
This mission represents only a small part of the DMCA's activities, with a total budget of around €320 million in 2024. It is run by two subdirectorates and a national department:
- The Sub-Directorate for the Remembrance of Combatants, which helps to define and implement State policy in the field of remembrance of contemporary wars and conflicts (from 1870 to the present day) and draws up the corresponding commemorative programme.
- The Sub-Directorate for Cultural Heritage, which draws up and implements the overall cultural policy of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, covering museums, historical monuments, cultural assets and libraries. It is responsible for the strategic management of the Army Museum, the Navy Museum and the Air and Space Museum, as well as overseeing the archive activities of the Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD).
- The Service historique de la défense (SHD), which has national jurisdiction and through which the DMCA draws up and implements the MinArm's archiving policy: with 450 linear kilometres of archives, the SHD is the leading national archive service.
EUROPE'S FIRST MILITARY HISTORY LIBRARY
It is also home to Europe's leading library of military history, with a million documents held at its main site in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne) and six others throughout France. The documents range from manuscripts (the oldest dating back to the 12th century) to books, periodicals, atlases, maps and 'grey literature' (theses, dissertations, reports, regulatory documents, courses, etc.).
The DMCA, which oversees the "Delpat" (heritage delegations) of the three armed forces (Land, Air and Space, French Navy), also works with many external partners. To support defence education, for example, it relies at local level on "academic trinomials" involving the education authority, the departmental military delegate and the Union des auditeurs de l'IHEDN. It also finances doctoral contracts - one in 2023 on "The role and contribution of military air transport to French defence policy - the example of the Transall (1957-2022)", and three in 2024. Prizes will be awarded to theses or to comic stripsBook publishing and documentary production are also supported.
In the audiovisual sector, the Film and Creative Industries Mission (MCIC) is well known to production companies and is one of the latest creations to receive support, the "Cœurs Noirs" series looks at the day-to-day life of the special forces. In terms of heritage, the maintenance of the many military forts in the east of the country is entrusted to associations of enthusiasts, with a reserve officer based in Nancy to advise them.
The Ministry of the Armed Forces' cultural initiatives aimed at the general public also involve digital technology. Since 2015, an information system, Archange, has been dedicated to the management and promotion of cultural assets (works of art, furniture, uniforms, insignia, etc.), whether owned by the MinArm or simply deposited with it (by the Mobilier National, for example). At the end of 2023, Archange listed more than 176,000 items, each with its own explanatory note, some of which can be consulted on the website "Mémoire des Hommes. This site received more than 100,000 visits per month in 2023.
LIBERATION COMPANIONS ON STENCILS IN CHAD
Apart from museums and places of remembrance, the Ministry's cultural action that is best known to the general public is undoubtedly that of army painters. This speciality dates back to the Ancien Régime, when sovereigns commissioned artists to immortalise their feats of glory, such as the Brussels-born Adam Frans van der Meulen, Louis XIV's "painter of the King's battles".
There are now four corps, whose members accompany military personnel on missions: the Army painters, the official Navy painters (POM), the Air and Space painters and, since 2020, the Gendarmerie painters (an army under the functional authority of the Ministry of the Interior).
Army painter Maryse Garel during a mission at the Canjuers camp (Var), in October 2022. DELPAT-armée de Terre-Défense
In fact, they are artists using a wide variety of media: painters, but also illustrators, draughtsmen, engravers, sculptors and photographers. And even graffiti artists: the urban artist and stencil artist Christian Guémy, better known by his pseudonym C215, left for Chad at the beginning of May. painting portraits of the Companions of the Liberationwith sculptor Thomas Waroquier.
One of MinArm's lesser-known cultural missions is partly carried out abroad. Today, the army's Delpat maintains a tradition dating back to the creation in 1917 of the "Service de protection des monuments et œuvres d'art en zone des armées". With "curatorial officers" in place since 1996, Delpat sends them on operations to preserve local heritage during conflicts, such as in the Central African Republic in 2018 and Mali in 2019.
It also makes its skills available to allied armies: in 2023-2024, Ukrainian, Greek, Polish, Lebanese, Estonian and Congolese units were trained in this way, bilaterally or through NATO and UNESCO.
