In the wake of the 2015 attacks and the contrasting reactions of French society, the idea of a memorial emerged. The project begins to take shape in 2021, the site chosen the same year and the financing planned for 2024. But government instability complicates things to the point that there is talk of abandoning the project.
September 2018: Emmanuel Macron announces the creation of a place of memory for the victims of terrorism in France, and French victims abroad.
February 2019: Édouard Philippe, Prime Minister, entrusts the historian Henry Rousso with the presidency of a first mission to prefigure the Memorial Museum of Terrorism (MMT). This mission reports on memory policy linked to terrorism in early 2020.
November 12, 2019: The Paris Council unanimously votes for the “memorial garden” project for the attacks of November 13, 2015, located at Place Saint Gervais (4th arrondissement). The opening is scheduled for November 2025.
September 2020: Emmanuel Macron officially entrusts Henry Rousso with a second prefiguration mission, with the objective of drafting the scientific and cultural project, and finding a location “with a preference for a location in Paris or Greater Paris”.
February 2021: The public interest group for the prefiguration mission of the Memorial Museum of Terrorism (MMT) is approved. It is established for two years, renewable; the State, via the eight founding ministries of the GIP, has 70% of the votes in the general assembly. A Scientific and Cultural Council of around twenty members assists management in developing the content of the future MMT. Victims’ associations and several members of civil society (including former magistrate François Molins) participate in an Observatory associated with the prefiguration mission.
May 2021: The site of the outdoor school in Suresnes was chosen for the establishment of the MMT, a few hundred meters from the Mont Valérien memorial. The site built in 1936 is abandoned and the buildings classified as Historic Monuments require complete restoration.
2022: Publication of the MMT cultural and scientific project which is handed over to Emmanuel Macron. The MMT organizes conferences and off-site exhibitions with the first objects from its collections. The future museum will retrace the history of attacks since 1974, the date of the attack claimed by Carlos (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) at the Publicis drugstore which left two victims. A memorial designed by a contemporary artist will be installed in one of the Suresnes pavilions as part of the “1%” system.
December 21, 2023: The PLF 2024 is adopted in the National Assembly. The MMT benefits from 10.5 million euros from the Ministry of Culture in commitments and 2.5 million in payment credits, and 22.8 million in commitments and 4.4 million in payment credits from the Ministry of Justice . The total budget in 2024 was therefore 35.8 million including 5.9 for expenses. These amounts are mainly intended for building restoration work.
January 2024: The constitutive agreement of the GIP “prefiguration mission of MMT” is renewed by decree.
May 2024: Announcement of the renovation work schedule, with a tight schedule. Henry Rousso mentions a budget of 95 million euros over eight years, but the figure is not confirmed. The opening of the MMT is officially scheduled for March 11, 2027, a national day of tribute to victims of terrorism.
November 5, 2024: The 2025 draft state budget communicated to Parliament no longer includes a budget line for MMT.
December 4, 2024: the motion of censure brings down the Barnier government and leads to the rejection of the PLF 2025.
December 9, 2024: Henry Rousso is alarmed in the press “the abandonment of the MMT project” after a meeting in Matignon. He claims that the government wants a “museum outside the walls” for budgetary reasons.
December 12, 2024: The Élysée announces that the project is not abandoned because “the President attaches importance to it”but that it depends on “next government”. A conciliation meeting was planned for December 13 but nothing came out, and the MMT did not communicate about it.
