Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Anany discussed with President of the Louvre Museum in Paris Laurence des Cars and her accompanying delegation ways to enhance cooperation between the Egyptian side and the Louvre Museum, one of the oldest museum bodies in the world.
El-Anany began the meeting by welcoming the museum’s president and the delegation accompanying her, congratulating her on assuming her new position last September.
He stressed the depth of Egyptian-French relations, as the two countries are linked with extensive historical, civilisational relations and fruitful cooperation in many fields, including tourism and antiquities.
The meeting touched upon a number of topics that would enhance cooperation between the tourism ministry, represented by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and the Louvre Museum, including working to renew the cooperation protocol signed in 2016 between the Islamic Department of the Louvre Museum and the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, maximising the benefit from it by expanding the areas of cooperation to include the exchange of experiences in the fields of museum work in general by training curators and restorers, holding temporary archaeological exhibitions, and other areas of fruitful cooperation.
El-Anany also stressed the need to work on the sustainability of the projects carried out in cooperation between the two parties in order to ensure the continuity and diversity of joint frameworks.
For her part, Des Cars stressed her happiness at the meeting and what it represented in establishing a renewed formula for the constructive Egyptian partnership in the fields of antiquities and museums. She also commended the role played by the Egyptian tourism ministry in the fields of museums and antiquities.
Also in attendance at the meeting were Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities; Moamen Othman, the Head of the Museums Sector; Minister Plenipotentiary Dalia Abdel Fattah, who is also the General Supervisor of the General Department of International Relations and Agreements; Mamdouh Othman, Director General of the Museum of Islamic Art; Vincent Rondot, the Director of the Egyptology Department in the Louvre Museum; and Matthias Grolier, the Director of the Office of the President of the Louvre Museum.
