Sylvie Retailleau explains how she saved the Palais de la Découverte

A physicist by training, former president of Paris-Saclay University and former Minister of Higher Education, Sylvie Retailleau has chaired Universcience since January 2026, a public establishment which oversees the Palais de la Découverte and the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie.

Did the Palais de la Découverte really come close to disappearing?

Yes, we didn’t come far from not having it at all! But to understand, we must dive back into the explosive context of the renovation of the Grand Palais. For five years, everything was put back into play. The Grand Palais, the Palais de la Découverte and the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie de la Villette found themselves at the heart of intense debates, with the common thread being the dilemma of the place to be given to classical and scientific cultures. Ultimately, however, these debates confirmed the value of this place where art and science coexist at a very high level. And that is unique in the world.

Didn’t the State “abandon” you a little in the negotiations with the Grand Palais?

I wouldn’t speak of abandonment… But faced with this renovated and even more spectacular building, the question arose directly of dedicating it entirely to classical culture. We had to convince that Universcience had the ambitious project of showing science in action while making young people want to dive into the technologies of tomorrow. The bet has been won since the Palais de la Découverte, still housed in the Palais d’Antin, will open its doors again in March 2027.

But you still give up a gallery with a surface area of ​​1,200 m²!

It’s true, but this gallery that we gave to the Grand Palais is not one of the eight galleries that we are keeping…

Why did you give it up?

Because we had to contribute to global economic balance! The renovation of the Grand Palais and the Palais d’Antin represents 500 million euros. Of this sum, 350 million euros are financed by the State and 150 million euros are the responsibility of the Grand Palais, which has taken out a loan over around twenty years. To repay it, he promotes his spaces, galleries or private rooms by renting them or organizing events there. But the president of the Grand Palais, Didier Fusillier, asked us to participate in this financing. We therefore found this very concrete compromise with the sale of this gallery which represents around 30 million euros in revenue over ten years. This is our contribution proportional to the surface area occupied. Once this agreement has been reached, the subject is now closed.

You are also lending a second gallery to the Grand Palais…

This is also true, but it is important to distinguish the two, because they do not have the same status at all. There, it is a 350 m2 gallery on loan until June 30, 2030, during the work of the Center Pompidou, which is organizing some of its exhibitions there, such as the one devoted (currently) to Matisse. But on this firm date, we get it back. It is written in black and white in the agreement concluded with the Grand Palais and signed by our supervisory ministers.

Is there no provision for compensation for this shortfall?

No, and then we are two public establishments, there is no real shortfall or rent logic between us, except that the Grand Palais will pay the charges for the loaned gallery. In fact, the agreement is balanced since we recover something valuable in exchange, control of the programming of the Children’s Palace (space opening in June 2025, editor’s note), until now shared. The Palais de la Découverte will therefore be able to hold its own temporary exhibitions in a larger space while continuing to work with the Grand Palais on “arts and sciences” exhibitions. But we are the ones who keep control of the programming.

The discussions with the Grand Palais seem to have been bitter!

Yes and no. We were two presidents, each with the responsibility of defending their perimeter. However, when we quantified the reciprocal contributions, everything became very factual and pragmatic, with an agreement co-signed by our two supervisory ministries.

With shared use of the spaces of the Antin rotunda, set at 180 days each in the year, how can we prevent the Grand Palais’ event programming from taking over science?

Here too, a clause in our agreement allows the Grand Palais to use the rotunda continuously only on the occasion of the international (contemporary art) fair Art Basel Paris, and this excess cannot exceed five days. In return, for the Science Festival, we can use all of this space. It’s give and take. In addition, this sharing of space takes place outside opening hours, so the risk of conflict is very limited.

A common entrance, isn’t that a risk of loss of identity?

On the contrary, identity is lost when we do not renew ourselves, and our role is to give citizens access to our two universes. We are also working with the Grand Palais on a combined ticket. What’s the point of being in such an extraordinary building, if not to do things together?

Very different figures are circulating on Universcience’s deficit, which would be between 19 and 48 million euros. Where are we really?

Today it is 20 million euros. But we must be precise about what we call “deficit”. If the budget is negative, there is a working capital of around 20 million euros on which we live. It is therefore not a deficit in the strict sense of the term. The real problem is that we have been drawing on this fund for several years and that it is not inexhaustible. The objective now is to no longer touch it for day-to-day operation. This is the red line.

How are you going to get things back on track?

There is no miracle, we must balance revenue and expenditure. Today, we are at around 20% own resources; the objective, over five to ten years, is to increase to 30% by promoting the rotunda, by exporting more of our exhibitions and by attracting a more international audience to the Palais de la Découverte.

Ultimately, this deficit is perhaps the sign of a running out of steam in the French model of scientific popularization…

We are currently studying this parameter for our new programming. However, there are first of all cyclical explanations. The Palais de la Découverte has been closed since 2020 and the Cité des enfants in La Villette has been closed in 2024 and 2025. However, children constitute 800,000 visitors per year, or almost half of our audience. Moreover, in 2025, we have had 1.9 million admissions while at full capacity we are around 3 million. This being said, this does not eliminate the questions about the model’s running out of steam. We see that the public is increasingly demanding mediation and interaction. He wants to become an actor in the exhibition. We must rework our way of presenting them, taking into account the very rapid evolution of technologies which force us to constantly reinvent ourselves.

On the Cité des sciences de la Villette side, the building needs to be renovated, but when we talk about its cost, the figures range from 300 million euros to a billion euros…

This large gap can be explained by two radically different approaches. The classic audit carried out in 2021, which recommended changing the entire facade and redoing the roof, cost the work between 1 and 1.2 billion euros. Then, the architectural agency Lacaton & Vassal, recognized for its expertise in tailor-made renovation, made a diagnosis of what really needed to be renovated by working on the thermal aspect. And a first assessment was estimated between 375 and 500 million euros. Nothing has been decided, but the lead is promising.