Duelling Aussie museums at Villers-Bretonneux

We have tracked (particularly here under the heading Update 12 May) the government’s commitment to the wizzo new Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre (high tech museum) at Villers-Bretonneux. This project will cost nearly $A100 million, mostly from the coffers of the Department of Defence.

Readers may not have grasped that there is already a Franco-Australian Museum (Musée Franco-Australien) in the heart of Villers-Bretonneux, about five minutes drive through the flat fields of northern France from the location of the new centre. Here is a picture of the existing museum.

2007_0730BORONIAWF0304-V2-300x199(Boronia Battlefield Tours)

The museum apparently has been quite popular since it was opened in 1975. ‘One of the most moving experiences’, say the people at Boronia Battlefield Tours, ‘for those travelling on one of our Western Front tours is a visit to the Franco-Australian Museum at Victoria Primary School in Villers-Bretonneux’. La Musée is closed at present (temporary exhibition nearby), undergoing refurbishment at a cost of $A2.1 million. Are we to assume that the new Interpretive Centre will be 50 times better than the existing Musée? How will it play in Boronia?

12 June 2015

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