Possibly a ray of hope for my roof. Christine Albanel, the Minister of Culture has just announced a surtax on four-star hotels – each person staying in a so-called luxury hotel will be charged an extra 2 euro a night. In theory those 2 euro will go towards putting a new roof on my house.

Just after New Year, if you remember, it rained particularly heavily. When I got home after a couple of nights away I found rain-water had come right through the top floor of the house (having passed through the roof first, you understand) into my bedroom and the front living room. Carpets, a chest of drawers, clothes were soaked. Upstairs in my study it was considerably worse, since many books, magazines and papers had been deluged. Having been empty for few days the house was, of course, cold and I had to light fires in all the rooms to dry things out – since it was still raining the house smelled of damp carpets for over a week.

I have often priced re-roofing the house – but it’s fiercely expensive. Periodically men in Mercedes turn up and pace around under the eaves pointing airily upwards and saying as well as the slates I must replace all the voliges (the thick wooden planks lining the roof), replace several of the beams, joists and whatnot. Then just as airily they hand me a five-figure quote. Others say that’s not necessary, just replace the slates (have new ones shipped in from Scotland, they say) – but I worry that’s just putting a new skin on a rotten skeleton. Once an architect from the Monuments Historiques concluded his visit by saying, straight-faced: “Monsieur King, even if you have a completely new roof, voliges and all, it will still leak. It is in the nature of a roof to leak.” When I asked if I could touch the Monuments Historiques for a couple of grand to repair the roof, it was his turn to assume I was joking: “Ah, l’humour anglais!”, he laughed, wiping his eyes. “You think the Monuments Historiques has money!” That set him off again “Oh that’s the best one I’ve heard for a long time.”

So maybe Christine Albanel’s plan is just what I need. Her people have calculated that each year there are enough nuitées (what a wonderful word) in posh hotels for her surtax of 2€ to generate 50 million euro a year. That should satisfy the greediest roofer, but of course it has to be shared out amongst the other 43,232 other buildings listed by the Monuments Hysteriques. It works out at just over a thousand euro for each house. That’s the trouble.

The tragic part of this story is that M. Eschlimann, who dreamed up the idea of taxing the sleeping to pay for the crumbling, originally suggested a much lower surtax, but on every hotel’s nuitées (why does that word sound so naughty?). He suggested 0.13€ per night which would raise not 50 million but 170 million. It was rejected – but why? Mme Albanel’s logic is that a 2€ surtax will not be felt amongst those paying on average, she says, 200€ a night. That’s 1%. I don’t know what the average ordinary hotel bill is but recently I’ve been paying 50€ minimum in the provinces: 1% of that is 50 centimes. M. Eschlimann suggested a mere 13 centimes. And it raises more than three times as much. I do sometimes wonder what is wrong with French (higher) education: one of France’s best-qualified architects of historic buildings says that roofs will always leak, and a bunch of enarques at the Ministry of Culture believe raising 50 million is preferable to raising 170 million (in a country where “les caisses sont vides”). I have the impression common sense is not on the syllabus (although of course the very phrase “common sense” has no exact equivalent in French). Another element of common sense missing from this affair: you might think the Ministry of Culture would discuss their plans with other ministries concerned, such as the Ministry of Finance. But no - and that particular ministry was furious when they heard (in the press) of the proposed surtax. It has its own, rather different plans for France’s hotels and will almost certainly squash the Albanel initiative. So my roof will continue to deteriorate.

France has an incredibly rich patrimoine of historic buildings, but fully 78% are in a terrible state and are in need of massive investment. There was talk of closing Amiens cathedral, for example, because it is potentially dangerous to the public. Is that possible? There is more and more talk in hallowed circles of demolishing churches – only recently considered sacrosanct. On my desk is a photograph of a bull-dozer in the middle of a roofless church, smashing its way through the nave. There is something offensive, barbarian about it. But several thousand communes are realising they cannot afford to keep up their churches (churches are owned by the state and it is up to the local mayor to maintain them). As more and more wage-earners leave France profonde, rural communes dwindle and only the elderly remain, so local rates cannot be raised to encompass expensive restoration. But there is no equivalent of the National Trust, a private organisation dedicated to the upkeep of old buildings, paid for by members and tourists, which, with English Heritage, is responsible for the healthy state of Britain’s old stones. And as far as I know nobody has thought of converting churches into dwelling spaces to make their restoration rentable. Strangely that might be considered more sacrilegious than knocking them down.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 7:51 am and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.