The large-scale project to create a Maison de l’Histoire de France has been abandoned. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy had proposed the cultural project and launched an initiative to create a new massive French historical museum. Sarkozy’s failed re-election bid and the Euro financial crisis both contributed to the recent decision of the government of François Hollande to abandon the Maison de l’Histoire de France project altogether.

The Maison de l’Histoire de France was intended to regroup several existing museums, or parts of their collections, into a new museum that was to have been housed in the hôtel de Soubise, the current location of the Archives Nationales (AN). Archivists and staff from the AN organized a series of strikes against the Maison de l’Histoire de France during Sarkozy’s presidency.

Many French historians and museologists complained that Sarkozy’s project had an overtly political agenda to present a right-wing vision of French history.

Le Monde reports on the end of the Maison de l’Histoire de France.