The appointment of Renan Benyamina (43 years old), as director of the Public Information Library (BPI), appears natural given his career path. Curator of libraries by training, he succeeds Christine Carrier, in post since 2014. His appointment comes in a context of transition for the institution, engaged in a temporary relocation and an overhaul of its cultural project with a view to the reopening of the Center Pompidou in 2030.
Renan Benyamina is a specialist in book issues and public reading, with a background focused on audiences and the design of cultural projects. He directed the Ain Departmental Library (2013 – 2016) then joined the City of Paris as advisor for live entertainment, books and public reading with Bruno Julliard.
He has shown his commitment to youth and cultural democratization through his various functions. Whether at the Ateliers Médicis (2018 – 2023) or the Pass Culture (more briefly from 2024 – 2025), he has carried out projects promoting young people’s access to art, reading and knowledge. In view of the reopening of the library within the Center Pompidou, the new director will have to rethink the cultural project of the BPI with an emphasis on youth, cooperation and information. Renan Benyamina has also expressed his intention to bring the BPI to life as a “living information center”, using a formula from architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers regarding the Center Pompidou.
The new director of the BPI succeeds Christine Carrier who led the institution for 12 years. She will have completed several successive mandates to carry out library transformation projects. Under his leadership, the BPI undertook a major renovation of its spaces and services with a project costing 12 million euros. Completed in 2020, this transformation allowed the creation of a common entrance with the National Museum of Modern Art and the reconfiguration of public spaces. More recently, Christine Carrier led the temporary relocation of the BPI outside the walls of the Center Pompidou, anticipating the closure of the latter for work.
The BPI maintains an organic link with the Center Pompidou while having its own status. The largest public reading library in France (with 1.4 million visitors on average per year for a collection of 400,000 documents), the BPI is a national public establishment placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. It is located within the Georges-Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture in Paris. It therefore participates in the latter’s cultural mission and promotes, among other things, documentary cinema. It also offers innovative resources and services to the public, in addition to museum activities.
Closed to the public on March 2, 2025, due to the vast renovation project of the Center Pompidou, the library was able to reopen in August 2025 on a new site. From now on, the BPI welcomes its users within the Lumière building, a modern glass-fronted building located on avenue des Terroirs-de-France in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. This temporary site, located in the Bercy district, is a stone’s throw from the National Library of France (François-Mitterrand site) and the Cinémathèque française.
At the Center Pompidou, the BPI benefited from 10,400 m², offering more than 2,000 seats as well as vast spaces dedicated to reading, debates, screenings and cultural events. In Lumière, the library has a little over 8,000 m² and 1,500 seats. Although the surface area is reduced, the new equipment nevertheless retains the heart of the BPI’s missions, maintaining its collections, its work spaces and its multimedia services.
