This fall, the cultural offer is narrowing for the inhabitants of Avignon. The town hall has scheduled closing periods in several establishments in the Avignon Musées municipal network. The Calvet Museum has already started the sequence on September 21, and the Petit Palais must follow suit from November 16. They will be able to reopen on December 8 and December 1, respectively, when the baton will pass to the Muséum Requien and Bains Pommer, whose doors will remain closed throughout the month.
The town hall presents these closures in order to “take care of the collections, spaces and reception conditions for the public, and prepare in the best conditions for the next stages in the life of the establishments”. The town hall press release is quite vague, providing no details on the nature of the preparations mentioned. It is unknown if maintenance work will be carried out, equipment renovated, or if restorations of works are planned. As the only clue, the town hall indicates that “behind the temporarily closed doors, the work of the teams continues”. Contacted by the Journal des arts, the Requien museum and the Petit Palais did not wish to comment on these closures, redirecting us diplomatically to the town hall.
The policy of reducing spending in the cultural sector undertaken in recent months by the teams of the new elected Olivier Galzi, however, raises questions about the motivations behind these closures. The Bains Pommer and the Palais du Roure remained closed to the public from July 13 to September 1, in the middle of the tourist season, due to a lack of funds available in the new budget for the recruitment of seasonal workers. The workforce had to be concentrated on the sites of the four establishments benefiting from the Musée de France label.
The revision of the budget is one of the areas dealt with by the councilor the day after his election. In May, Olivier Galzi, the successor to Cécile Helle (PS), ordered an audit from the Michel Klopfer firm which, a few weeks later, reported a critical financial situation, leading the Vaucluse prefecture and the Departmental Directorate of Public Finances (DDFIP) to register Avignon in the local finance alert network. During his return to politics at the end of August, Galzi therefore presented a plan for austerity and recovery of municipal finances, in which culture is not spared.
At the beginning of September, The Dauphiné Libéré reported a drop in subsidies to Avignon cultural, sporting, educational and social associations of 5.9% over the whole of 2026, decided at the end of the municipal council on June 30. The announcement followed the cancellation of the events planned in partnership with the Louvre to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Petit Palais d’Avignon, as well as the abandonment of the Macha Makeïeff exhibition at the Palais des Papes, which was to be held in parallel with the 80th Avignon festival – a decision taken by the previous municipality on the eve of the March elections, and maintained by Galzi’s teams.
