On the Art Frontline: The Experience of French Conservation Officers in Protecting Cultural Property on Operations

Captain Tim Le Berre holds a master’s degree in art history and heritage conservation from the École du Louvre, and a master’s degree in military history from the University of Heidelberg. A curator and military historian, he worked at the German Army Museum in Dresden after graduating and joined the French army in 2013. He commanded a platoon as a gunnery officer in the 1er Artillery Regiment between 2015 and 2019. He took part in several overseas operational deployments, including Djibouti, Senegal and Mali. Since 2019, he has held the position of deputy director at the army’s heritage office in Paris, where he developed the implementation of military protection of cultural property and led numerous deployments in the field. His work currently takes two forms: the establishment of a French military cultural property protection capability on the one hand, and, on the other, a research project on French military operations and the protection of cultural property as part of a Ph.D. at Newcastle University under the supervision of Prof. Peter Stone. In August 2023, he was appointed curator of the French Foreign Legion and continues his activities as cultural property protection specialist.