France, Heritage and Territories exceptional
from 5 March to 3 July 2022
Grilles du Jardin du Luxembourg
rue de Médicis 75006 Paris
© City of Luneville
The Exhibition
81 photographs to illustrate a network of over 2,000 sites.
Feel the freshness of an autumn morning in the Vézère valley, observe the precise work of the glove-maker in Millau, escape into the narrow streets of Serres, or stroll along the Quai des Carmes along the Maine river in Angers, such is the sensitive journey that is revealed on the gates of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Bringing together 81 photographs of heritage sites and natural areas, the exhibition illustrates a plural image of France where the singularity and beauty of places, their lively and innovative character, the attention paid to the preservation and quality of the heritage, and the encounter with the inhabitants all come together. It offers an immersion in 81 dynamics, which combine to offer not just scenery, but environments that are attractive to walk through and where it is good to live.
It is an invitation to get off the beaten track, to experience the discovery of exceptional heritages, territories, places and unexpected, sometimes forgotten, know-how. A real alternative to the tourist concentration zones, this heritage tourism offers both to share this "French way of life", born of centuries of traditions that are renewed through exceptional cultural and natural environments, and to contribute to the preservation and sustainable development of the territories.
A word from the President
One visitor in two chooses our country as a tourist destination, attracted by its heritage, its culture and its landscapes. All the towns, from the smallest to the largest commune, all the sites and protected areas, which make up the network of the France. Patrimoines & Territoires d'exception are distinguished by the heritage they have received, their determination to protect it, pass it on and make it live on. Ancient centres, modest housing, majestic palaces, public spaces, natural landscapes, traditions, crafts, cultures, architectures, from antiquity to the present day, to meet those who have designed, imagined, built, commissioned or lived there; this is the journey we invite you to take. This is the journey that our seven networks, united under the same banner, invite you to make through the 2,000 places that they bring together and where the genius of the craftsmen and the history of France merge indefinitely.
The journey for which these same communities invite you to join them, with their heritage departments, their dedicated structures, their tourist offices, their guides, their guides, etc., with a permanent and only coherent concern to include sustainable development and respect for the environment in all their practices.
For us, finally, a project that the Senate and its President have allowed us to express, which consists in repeating every day how much respecting these heritages, enhancing them, educating from their example, is equivalent, beyond the mere aesthetics and our identities, to reinforcing the double and necessary economy of culture and tourism.
Martin Malvy
President of France. Heritage and Exceptional Territories
