The municipality announced the partial reopening of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) before December 31, 2026. In a statement from November 4, the CGT NMCA denounces a hazardous timeline. It demands guarantees on the safety of collections and working conditions.
The forthcoming reopening of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) concerns the Nice trade union organization. The emblematic institution closed its doors on January 7, 2024 due to a major rehabilitation project.
Nearly 1,475 artworks have been transferred to external storage facilities, particularly in Aix-en-Provence, to prevent the risk of deterioration. The museum teams maintained off-site activities. “What bothers us about the current discourse is that we have the impression that for two and a half years nothing has happened,” testified a staff representative*.
During a session of the municipal council on October 12, 2026, Éric Ciotti officially announced a partial reopening of the museum by the end of the year. Previously, the CGT NMCA (Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis) had sent a letter to the municipality to alert it to the situation on October 7, 2026.
Left unanswered, the union published a statement a month later, in which it details the difficulties encountered in getting the building back into service. It deplores a lack of transparency regarding the conditions and procedures for reopening, excluding museum staff from the process.
An absence of dialogue
The union representatives said they learned of the partial reopening of MAMAC through the press. “It’s a reopening timeline and choice made without our consent. The lack of response is really a very vertical style of management and very authoritarian towards our professions,” declared the CGT representative*. They regret a decision made without any consultation with the teams, the professionals concerned, the architects and the competent institutional partners.
On October 12, the mayor of the city of Nice and president of the Nice Côte d’Azur metropolis, Éric Ciotti, had announced the establishment of a precise timeline before the next municipal council. For now, the date has not yet been set.
Conservation and safety issues underestimated
“The heaviest work concerns the facade and in particular the marble slabs that are not holding up. This renovation can be conducted entirely with an open facility,” the mayor had declared. The representatives of the CGT NMCA did not seem to agree: “after thirty years, the museum suffers from obsolescence that meant we could no longer display the pieces, either in storage or in exhibition spaces.” A thermal bridge problem, dysfunctional equipment and accessibility difficulties are factors that led to the museum’s closure.
The union expressed concern about the progress of the work. “They really just applied band-aids: on a facade with water infiltrations, they painted over it,” denounced the staff representative. We need to commit the resources to reopen under good conditions,” she added. At the October 12 municipal council meeting, Éric Ciotti remained enigmatic about the completion of the work, mentioning the appointment of a project management assistance team.
As the reopening scheduled for the end of the year approaches, the question of preserving the artworks is at the center of concerns. While the mayor has been categorical about the return of the pieces, the staff representative is nonetheless skeptical: “we closed and emptied the museum to do the work properly, without risk to the artworks. This work will be done with our masterpieces within our walls.“
*The person wished to remain anonymous.
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