Paris mayor overpays €86M for Pinault museum site, Le Canard Enchaîné reveals

Le Canard Enchaîné has revealed that the City of Paris purchased the Bourse de Commerce building for €86 million to house François Pinault's future museum, a sum far exceeding the legal buyback clause of €0.15. The satirical newspaper claims documents prove the deal was reckless and overpriced. The building, originally sold to the Chamber of Commerce in 1949 for one franc, included a clause allowing the city to repurchase it for the same symbolic amount if it ceased to host the Bourse de Commerce. The city also paid €23 million in compensation for the Chamber's investments, which Le Canard Enchaîné estimates were only around €4 million. Mayor Anne Hidalgo's office defended the price as market-appropriate. Critics question the wisdom of spending so much for a museum housing the collection of one of the world's richest men, especially after the city cut funding to Le Plateau, the FRAC Île-de-France exhibition space, prompting artist and intellectual mobilization to prevent its closure. The Bourse de Commerce, inaugurated in 1889, is undergoing a Tadao Ando-led restoration and will open in 2019, joining the Louvre and Pompidou as a major cultural anchor in central Paris.