What museums do we want in France in the future?

In France on 17 May 2016, Audrey Azoulay, the then Minister of Culture and Communication, launched a debate inviting input from all the museums in the Musees de France network in an effort to identify the main guidelines for museum policy in respect of the challenges facing a society in transition. This article explores, in the following order: the circumstances in which the invitation was issued; the boundaries defining the mandate of the Museums of the twenty-first Century Project team tasked with implementing it; that team's methods; and the results achieved.