Speaking at the inauguration, President Macron described the Musée national de la Marine: "More than a restoration, more than a renovation, this is a reinvention!"

Macron said that he wanted the museum to act as “a place of education, meeting and influence.”

"If we had come here eight years ago we would not have seen anything like this at all - neither this impression of space and clarity nor this effect of immersion carried by the wave, encapsulated in the boat, nor this scaphandre at the entrance, nor this starry ceiling.”

“After six years of restoration, this museum presents all past and future maritime issues and becomes a centre for interpreting maritime news as well as a space for research and international scientific exchange.”

"We had a museum about the past glory of our navy but a museum of our maritime future was precisely missing, and this is what is opening today at the end of a huge project...The best of our curators, administrator, restorers, scenographers, craftsmen, workers, technicians, the Oppic and so many others - you have worked until this wonderful result."

"You have reinvented mediation, taking into account all audiences including the hearing impaired, visually impaired, visitors with mental disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder. You have thought of the images, the sounds, the smells...I know that you observed what was best and most innovative in the world, that you were inspired by it and that you surpassed it."

"So it is not just our seas here that we celebrate through this museum and to whom we pay homage, not simply our navy, but the whole of France. Through this sensitive mapping, the Musée national de la Marine pays homage to its women and men who, serving France, take to the sea, or - if we believe the song - who let themselves be taken by it, they know that they will never be masters, never owners, depositaries at best, and certainly responsible for guaranteeing peace and security at sea..."

"Here will be the place where in fact our past, present and future navy find itself a place."

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