PROTECTION OF CULTURAL PROPERTY IN FRANCE

Both structure and responsibilities of French authorities dealing with protection of historic monuments and cultural property, who were finally organized after a period of nearly 150 years of their continuing activities are presented in the above article. The author discussing in detail the whole system devoted a good deal of his critical considerations to such features involved in the practice of care over the cultural property in France as: a lasting centralization of the system which may be considered as one somewhat astonishing, especially in view of a relatively big territory of that country (it must be borne in mind that final organization of the local conservators’ offices in France has been adopted as late as in 1965 only); a thoroughly carried out and prolonged process of attributing a quality of historic monument to an object; an important rôle that is played by all advisory bodies as well as importance of their views and opinions in decision making; a high rank of conservators, who, although they are not the stricto sensu civil servants and thus the members of state administration, are granted with both considerable amount of confidence and responsibilities (e.g. les architects en chef des Monuments Historiques); some mechanisms of personal policies as, for instance, the offering of certain posts through competitions or heading the local conservator’s offices by persons coming from state administration. In addition, the author deals with the activities of the Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, an institution greatly aiding the state authorities responsible for the care of cultural property and also with a part which is played in the field of protection of historic monuments and their utilization by the local societies and committees