- France experiments with free reception apt

French citizen museums including the Louvre in Paris will let in many visitors free in the coming months Have You Heard This About SEO Yet_6006, in one experiment planned to open up high culture to a wider public.
"French museums are prepared because extra visitors, and we hope apt draw in a current public, particularly youth people ... it's a answer of money for some human," Christine Andre, spokeswoman for the mores ministry's salon body, said ashore Friday.
Until June 30, 2008, some citizen museums will offer entirely free admission to their permanent collections, while others will offer it to those below 26, an evening a week.
Foreign tourists will behalf like the French Greek Rosetta Stone, but the intention is to draw more locals into the 18 museums, which include the Centre Pompidou and Quai Branly in Paris and the Marine Museum in Toulon.
"If the French start watching long lines in front of the museums, they'll start to acquaint themselves: hey, foreigners are catching advantage of this we'd be morons not to!" Andre said.
In Paris, museums like the Louvre sell maximum of their tickets to foreigners.
Clarisse Vangucht, a 30yearold from the northern French metropolis of Lille who visited the Louvre on Friday, said she welcomed the scheme, but surprised who would pay for it.
"I yet go to museums constantly yet whether they are free five fingers shoes price, then so much the better," she said. "But it will draw lots of tourists who don't disburse regional taxes ... where will the money come from?"
Andre said it would take around 220 million euros ($320 million) to make up for the lost stamp bargains _19900, asset namely were set to get cracking both private contributors and state coffers.
Access to citizen museums was made entirely free in Britain in 2001, after a protracted battle among the administration and museum directors.
The British program led to a 62 percentage jump in attendance in its first year language software french, with 2.7 million new visitors.
Le Monde journal said this week all French government ministers would face extravaganza assessments in coming weeks. Culture Minister Christine Albanel would be judged on the numbers of new visitors the museums program preoccupied.
Information on always museums participating in the agenda namely obtainable, in French, by the emulating Web site: (here)
(Editing along Andrew Roche)