Dear Friends,
As you may have heard, the French bank BNP Paribas has started destroying its archive and is planning to do more in the very near future.
Already gone are government bond issues files by Comptoir d'Escompte one of the two predecessors institutions of BNP Paribas (the Other is Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas), French oldest joint stock bank, created 1848.
The information on these destructions have been cross checked from various sources, including from BNPParibas itself (Mr Longuemar, head of Association pour l'Histoire de Paribas, and Mrs Payen, Archivist, who makes no mystery of the destructions).
People have started reacting to that and many initiatives are on their way. I am in contact with Suzanne Berger a member of the board of Paribas and political scientist at MIT who supports opponents to the destructions.
I have also written to Jean-Louis Beffa another board member who as CEO of Saint Gobain has taken care of the archives of Saint Gobain in a very effective way.
I would like you to accept signing with me the letter below, which I intend to send in the next few days to Mr Pebereau CEO of BNP Paribas. I shoudl say that I know him personally, having shared a course at Sciences Po with him. Several petitions originating in the French economic history milieu are on their way, but I think that international pressure is essential.
If you support this letter and accept to be joint writer of it, you just need to send me an email "saying include me" and add an indication of the institutional afficilaition that you you want to appear.
Time is in the essence so the sooner, the better!
This letter will be sent to Mr Pebereau with cc Beffa, Berger, Longuemar, and Payen. I will also cc Maurice Aymard, from the MSH in Paris whose student Athanasia Barra played a critical role in first revealing the case and Jean-Claude Casanova from the FNSP board who can add friednly pressure.
Your participation is really critical.
Yours truly
Marc
Dear Mr Pebereau,
As you are probably aware, the Archives of BNP-Paribas have started major destruction of key material.
At that stage, Comptoir d'Escompte archive, including files dealing with government loans are already gone. We know from various sources including Pierre de Longuemar, that other destructions are planned or underway, although Mr de Longuemar insists that he does not know the exact extent of these plans.
With material gone and material ready to go, entire parts of French, European and international financial and political history are about to go to the shredding machine. We have no idea why these decisions were taken. They form a complete reversal of earlier policies by BNP-Paribas, which under your direction made sure that its archive was widely available to the largest public.
We, on behalf of the international academic community are grateful for BNP-Paribas' past support, but cannot accept or understand the current policies. We urge you to suspend the destructions and appeal to your past experience of good relations with the academic community, as a teacher at Sciences Po where your contribution was appreciated, and member of the FNSP board, which conclusively demonstrate your commitment to the relevance of research and higher education.
We will also be happy to meet you, in case you so desire, to pass on to you the broader's community extreme concern.
Yours truly
and then the list of signatures with affiliations
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