Catherine Pgard chose Versailles to send a signal to the heritage sector. On June 11, at the Château’s Orangery, during a party to mark the 30th anniversary of the Heritage Foundation, the Minister of Culture announced the launch, in September, of a Heritage Pass giving access to nearly 500 monuments, museums, castles and gardens. The system must be implemented on the occasion of the European Heritage Days, on September 19 and 20.
The principle is simple in appearance. For a price which should be around 100 euros per year, yet to be specified, the member would have access to a network of public and private sites. The first names cited relate both to the best-known national heritage – Versailles, Chambord, Fontainebleau, Chantilly, Azay-le-Rideau, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Vincennes, Villa Cavrois, Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild – and to more confidential places, such as the Maison de Colette, La Devinière-Musée Rabelais, the Maison Rozier or the Four des Casseaux.
The ministry makes the announcement, but the operator is the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Pass would not be sold directly by the State. It would take the form of a new membership formula for the Foundation, the website of which already indicates that “membership changes formula” and will provide access to site visits throughout France. The Foundation would thus become the aggregator of a heterogeneous heritage network, without becoming the owner or manager of the monuments concerned.
This is a notable development for an institution created in 1996, recognized as being of public utility, whose action is based primarily on collections, patronage, tax receipts, aid from equity and the Heritage Mission carried out with Stéphane Bern and la Française des jeux. Until now, the Foundation mainly intervened before the visit: catering, financing, local mobilization. With this Pass, she no longer collects just to repair; it organizes access, brings together sites and attempts to transform the visitor into a member.
The model naturally evokes the British National Trust. Founded in 1895, it provides access to more than 500 locations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is based on an integrated model: ownership or direct management of sites, massive memberships, legacies, volunteering, shops, catering… Subscription is only part of a much larger system, backed by an ancient culture of philanthropy and volunteering.
English Heritage is another landmark. Its membership gives access to more than 400 historic sites in England. It is based on a corpus of monuments, placed under the responsibility of the same heritage operator. The member does not just join a visitors club; it contributes to the financing of an institution which directly maintains a set of sites.
The French Heritage Pass does not fall under this logic. It does not create a French National Trust in the strict sense. It does not transfer monuments to an owner foundation, does not endow it with a massive heritage, and does not resolve the question of governance of the sites. It is more like a national access card, backed by a safeguard foundation. Its success will therefore depend on points that are still unknown: the final price, entry conditions, possible exclusions, reservations in busy places, and the redistribution key to partner sites.
The announcement also reactivates a file opened by Rachida Dati. In January 2025, the former Minister of Culture entrusted Marie Lavandier, president of the Center of National Monuments, with a mission on the possible adaptation of the British model of the National Trust to France. The report, submitted on July 3, 2025 under the title “A French National Trust, a community committed to a living heritage”, would include around twenty proposals intended to “protect, finance and bring to life” heritage. However, its contents have never been made public.
The Center des monuments nationaux (CMN) already has its own annual formula, “Passion Monuments”. This card gives for €49 unlimited access, for one year, to monuments managed by the CMN, i.e. around a hundred sites under the State’s control, including the Arc de Triomphe, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Pantheon, the Mont-Saint-Michel abbey, the ramparts of Carcassonne and the castle of Azay-le-Rideau. How will “Passion Monuments” coexist with the future Heritage Pass?
This is one of the questions that The Arts Journal posed during the announcement in November 2019 what was already called a “Heritage Pass”, offered by the same Heritage Foundation in partnership with the start-up Patrivia. But the system never really worked and in September 2024 Patrivia closed its doors.
