The agreement between France and Britain for the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry was finalised and signed yesterday at the British Museum in a special ceremony attended by the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron of France.
The tapestry will go on show in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery of the British Museum between September 2026 and July 2027. In return, Sutton Hoo treasures and the Lewis chessmen, some of the British Museum’s most important objects, will be loaned to institutions in Rouen and Caen.
However, Macron said at the event—for which the British Museum was closed to the public—that France has historically been reluctant to loan the Tapestry. “[For] decades I have to confess, we did our best not to be put in this situation to make the loan of the Bayeux tapestry,” he said.
“We found the best experts of the world to explain in perfect detail why it was totally impossible to make such a loan. And believe me, we found them, and believe me, we could have found them again.
“But we just decided a few years ago [to approve the Tapestry loan], and I have to pay tribute to your King [Charles IIII] because it was a discussion together and I saw his attachment, his willingness, towards this project.”
The loans will form part of a bilateral season of culture in 2027. Macron praised the partnership, saying: “There is no trade war or tariff against this type of [culture-based] approach…there are no borders by definition.”
The French President also highlighted how the British Museum and Louvre will undergo major renovation projects in the next decade. Macron said: “I want to commend [the British Museum] for the reinvention of the Western galleries. On our side, we will try to reinvent…the Louvre with the same ambition.”
In January, Macron announced a grand plan (“Nouvelle Renaissance”) to save the world’s biggest museum, revealing an ambitious masterplan which could cost €1bn. In February, the Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh won the competition to redesign the Western Range galleries at the British Museum in London which was described as “one of the biggest cultural renovations undertaken anywhere in the world”.
Starmer meanwhile focused on the Sutton Hoo treasures which were discovered as part of a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial in Suffolk in 1939, saying: “For Sutton Hoo,1,300 years ago in East Anglia, a wealthy man—we don’t know who it was, probably a King—was buried in a lavish funeral ceremony; [this was] an Anglo-Saxon era that was put to an end 300 years later by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings…it is an incredible piece of history.”
The UK leader added: “Both these treasures contain stories of war and of peace, of power and of politics, alliances and enemies that we still know all too well in our modern world.”
Macron added: “I want to thank the British Museum because they decided not just to welcome the Tapestry but said let’s look at Sutton Hoo…not just [as] a loan, as an exchange creating new ways to show to people the treasures. It unlocked everything.
“This exchange will take place [next year] and it will be a unique occasion to have millions of visitors to the British Museum and millions of visitors between Rouen and Caen.”
In front of an audience of museum staff, delegates and journalists, the loan agreement was officially signed by Nicholas Cullinan, the British Museum director, and Lisa Nandy and Rachida Dati, the respective culture secretaries for the UK and France.
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