An empty convent in central Paris meant to be remodelled into a Catholic solidarity centre has run into opposition from its affluent neighbours, including a heavyweight of French cinema, Gérard Depardieu.
The Paris archdiocese wants to turn the disused Monastery of the Visitation into help centres for pregnant women, the disabled and the homeless. It was donated more than a decade ago by a dwindling order of nuns whose one condition was that it never be sold.
The convent property, a whole acre hidden behind high walls in Paris’s chic 6ème arrondissement, boasts a large tree-lined garden and several nineteenth-century buildings.
The older main residence would survive but some smaller structures would be torn down and some trees felled to make way for modern homes for the three different services. The complex is not protected by heritage status.
The back of the property, where the project would destroy a wall to build a six-storey residence with ground-level shops, stands on one of the most charming streets on the city’s Left Bank, Rue du Cherche-Midi.
Right next to it is the Hôtel de Chambon, a yellow-painted mansion belonging to Depardieu. He has filed an appeal against the convent’s transformation.
At the other end, the project foresees a seven-storey residence facing the dull Rue de Vaugirard, where the main entry gate stands.
Several heritage groups support Depardieu. A petition already has more than 1,000 signatories.
The archdiocese has pledged to open the remodelled garden to the public and replant trees that would have to be cut for the construction.
Depardieu’s first appeal has been rejected but he has brought a second one to another court. The archdiocese is sticking to its plan.
“Welcoming the poorest in convents is exactly what Pope Francis is asking for,” said Guillaume Grandgeorge, whose association would work with the homeless there.
The Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, which claimed about 350 convents in Europe and the Americas at its peak, was founded by St Frances de Sales in 1610 in France. Originally meant to visit the ill, the Visitation sisters soon became a cloistered order and built monasteries with gardens to sustain them.
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