Call for sponsorship to buy Michel Foucault’s archives

Paris, 8 May 2013, Art Media Agency (AMA).

The Ministry of Culture sent out a call for sponsorship to French companies in order to purchase the archives of Michel Foucault.

The archives of the French philosopher consist of 37,000 hand-written or typed documents. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) stated its intention to acquire these documents, ranked as a national treasure, a year ago.

The call for sponsorship concerns €3.5m. Supporting the purchase of a national treasure for the State will allow indebted companies with company taxes to benifit from a reduction of up to 90% within 50% of the sum due.

The national treasure title is a way of protection in order to avoid goods holding a major historical, artistic and archeological value for the country from being exported. The BNF often uses this procedure to enrich its collection. That is…