Problem, the LCAP law (relating to the freedom of creation, architecture and heritage) says something else: natural or legal persons carrying out visit services within the Museums of France or historical monuments “can only use the services of qualified persons holding a professional guide-lecturer card”. Invoking the employment ceiling for operators of the Ministry of Culture, the MNHI eliminated the nine positions of temporary guide-lecturers to replace them with the services of an external service provider. Eight of these guides refused the proposal to resume their activity under the status of independent worker: “I hesitated to accept, but it was decently not possible”, reports one of them, cooled by the tariff imposed by the agency providing the museum.
The National Union of tour guides deplores the systematic outsourcing of tour guides. A few rare operators, such as the Réunion des musées nationaux, still keep their guides under contract. According to the union, the tourism sector respects the obligation to employ guides with a professional card, but not museums, which use agencies that deliberately ignore the law: a difference that leads guides to prefer the tourism industry. tourism to the cultural sector, while the number of working professionals has fallen sharply.
