Published on September 16th, 2023 at 9:21 AM
Updated on September 16th, 2023 at 9:49 AM
The World Monuments Fund did not choose its timing by chance to open its Paris office: the Heritage Days. The American charitable institution, which is the largest NGO dedicated to the protection of exceptional sites, had deserted the capital since 2017. Is it the influence of its new president, Bénédicte de Montlaur, the first Frenchwoman to lead the WMF? She, who has long worked for the French Embassy in New York as well as for the United Nations Security Council, sees this return to France, the country of heritage, as obvious.
“We had established a branch in Paris in 1989 and even when it was closed, the presence of the WMF was constant, with about thirty supported projects. When I took over the leadership of the WMF in 2019, I reviewed our geographical organization, considering that we had close ties with international institutions based in Paris such as UNESCO, ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), the Google Art Center, and with globally renowned museums like the Louvre,” justifies Bénédicte de Montlaur, at the helm of a team of 50 collaborators, half of whom are based in the United States, and the other half in India, Peru, England, Portugal, Spain, Cambodia…
