France's medieval Bayeux Tapestry will be moved to Britain in secret in a shockproof container so that it can be displayed in London this year, the culture minister said Wednesday.
The 11th-century artefact depicting the 1066 Norman conquest of England is to go on display at the British Museum from September and French Culture Minister Catherine Pegard said all possible precautions will be taken to protect it.
Normally on display in the northern French town of Bayeux, President Emmanuel Macron agreed a loan to celebrate cross-Channel relations.
Some experts have however voiced concern about possible damage to the 70-meter (230 feet) embroidery, which already has over 24,000 stains, 9,000 holes and 30 tears.
But Pegard said she had "found the insinuations of incompetence that some have tried to spread particularly unfair."
"Nothing, absolutely nothing, has been left to chance, particularly when it comes to the movement of this work," she told a Paris press conference.
The tapestry will travel, on a date kept secret, to the British Museum in a crate specially designed to cushion vibrations, the minister and officials said.
According to a culture ministry study published on Wednesday following a second trial run carried out in April, the crate can absorb 96 percent of the force of a significant impact over the entire journey.
The conclusions of this study amount to giving the green light for transporting the tapestry, even though "zero risk does not exist," the minister said.
"Never in the history of transporting works of art have so many tests, so many protocols, so many risk checks been carried out for a single relocation," she said, comparing the crate to "a cradle in which a newborn has been laid."
When it returns to France at the end of 2027, the Bayeux Tapestry will undergo a long-planned restoration that had been postponed.
