France Muséums has appointed Matthias Grolier (45) to its general management, drawing on his experience in international relations. He succeeds Hervé Barbaret, who left after two consecutive three-year terms. While the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the agency’s main client and historic raison d’être, is suffering the repercussions of the conflict that has shaken the Gulf since February, France Muséums must show that it can exist beyond the sole Emirati issue.
France Muséums was born in 2007 from an agreement between France and the United Arab Emirates. It belongs to major French public institutions, including the Louvre and the Réunion des musées nationaux, and relies on a network of 21 partners. Its primary mission is to implement the Franco-Emirati partnership around the Louvre Abu Dhabi and to coordinate the contributions of partner French museums and cultural institutions, first and foremost the Louvre Museum, but also the Center Pompidou, the Musée d’Orsay, the BNF and the Quai Branly. She participated and still participates in the scientific project and the acquisition policy, coordinates the loans of works, organizes temporary exhibitions and trains the Emirati teams.
But the agency is also seeking to diversify its activities. In December 2024, via its subsidiary France Muséums Développement, it signed an agreement with the Indian government to support the creation of the Yuga Yugeen Bharat National Museum in New Delhi.
A graduate of Assas in business law and HEC Paris in international law and management, Matthias Grolier practiced for thirteen years as a business lawyer at the Paris bar. He was notably promoted to partner at Gide Loyrette Nouel in 2018. The same year, the Minister of Culture Franck Riester appointed him advisor to the Ministry of Culture, in charge of international affairs, books and reading.
Matthias Grolier then joined the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, where he followed bilateral economic relations with certain strategic partners. In October 2021, he became chief of staff of Laurence des Cars at the Louvre. For four years, he coordinated the presidency’s agenda, arbitrated sensitive issues and managed institutional relations, particularly with France Muséums.
His experience as a business lawyer experienced in mergers and acquisitions and international shareholder agreements is an asset for an agency that manages intergovernmental contracts with very high financial value and arrangements between public shareholders and foreign partners. Its internal knowledge of the Louvre also counts, in a structure where the first shareholder is at the same time the main scientific partner. However, he never headed a heritage institution or ran a museum.
A senior civil servant trained at the ENA, senior advisor to the Court of Auditors, Hervé Barbaret has built his entire career in the most prestigious French heritage institutions. Deputy general director of the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine between 2004 and 2007, he was then appointed general administrator of the Louvre museum, a position he held from 2007 to 2015. He moved to the management of Mobilier national and the Gobelins, Beauvais and Savonnerie factories, before becoming secretary general of the Ministry of Culture in 2017. In 2019, he took the head of France Muséums.
