The Curie Institute “will suspend the demolition of the Pavillon des Sources in order to take the time to examine. . . any conceivable alternative,” Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak wrote on X, earlier on Twitter.
Critics of the demolition by Marie Curie, a two-time Nobel laureate, carried out in a laboratory in the building, which her supporters question.
The Curie Institute, the base for the fight against cancer, needs to build a 2,000-square-meter study center spread over five floors in the touristy Latin Quarter of Paris.
It would be “the first chemical biology centre linked to cancer in Europe” and “a clinical project”, the director of the Curie Institute, Thierry Philip, told AFP.
He added that he had a “peaceful exchange on the complex debate” with Minister Abdul Malak “on a memory factor that arouses so much emotion today. “
If a “workaround” can’t be found, “we’ll have to find a solution between reminiscence and living science,” Philip said.
Personalities such as television presenter Stéphane Bern and former conservative minister Rachida Dati brought the debate around the Pavillon des Sources onto the public stage.
It would be a “serious mistake” to destroy the building, Bern wrote on social media platform X this week.
He called on President Emmanuel Macron to protect it as a facet of French heritage.
“It’s not ordinary architecture, but it’s a symbolic and commemorative heritage,” he told France Culture on Thursday.
Philip said that the Pavillon des Sources was not a laboratory used by Curie, but rather served to store radioactive waste and today stands empty.
His current laboratory, the Curie Pavilion, is in danger of being demolished, he said.
For his part, Marc Joliot, great-grandson of Marie Curie and director of the French Commission for Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy (CEA), is in favour of the structure of the new clinical centre.
“I am a fervent defender of the scientific project,” Joliot told France Info on Saturday, adding he “would have liked to keep this building” but cancer research is “extraordinarily important”.