Minutes Red Mountains of Drouot: “From the mafia to the community” – Le Parisien

Economist Stephane Arpin returns to the corporation red Mountains of the Hotel Drouot, whose 41 members are deemed to include flights, from Monday.

Interview by Stephane Sellami | March 14, 2016, 0:00 | Update: March 14, 2016, 7:31

on Monday opens the trial of one of the biggest scandals that have plagued the market of french art. Forty-one former commission, better known as the Red Mountains or Savoyards, Hotel Drouot auction, and six auctioneers are judged until April 4 to flight, concealment and conspiracy by the court Corrections of Paris.

These little hands, responsible for the handling of art objects, are suspected of having engaged in countless thefts to the detriment of victims of tens. From trinket to master painting, some 250 t of goods were found in a search. Stéphane Arpin, an economist who has conducted sociological research on red Cols early 2000s, talks about their history and their derivatives.

How is made this corporation?
STÉPHANE ARPIN. Not since the second half of the nineteenth ^th century. Many Auvergne won the capital to Paris and are used as “arm people,” especially for handling artwork. Gradually, they will enrich and rise socially. After the annexation of Savoy by France in 1860, the Savoyards rise, in turn, to Paris and resume the business left by the Auvergne. They specialize in the tasks more difficult and less valued. Legend has it that Napoleon III, in thanks to the annexation of Savoy to France, they have entrusted this trade monopoly in Drouot, which lasted until the dissolution of the corporation.

“stealing the dead person came back to fly only”

All commissioners were from Savoy?

 Exactly. The Union of Commissioners of the Auction House (UCHV) Drouot, in which were grouped the 110 red Collars, based on operation at both atypical and very anachronistic. father of one entered there son, from uncle to nephew, by cooptation. This union was more than a business, it was a working community based on blood ties or kinship. Thus ensuring strong links and a secret operation. Then we switched from the community to the Mafia. The shade is tenuous. The economic operation was also atypical. Each Savoyard had the member status within the UCHV and was receiving equal pay, regardless of seniority, age and the original qualification. They also elected their own leaders.

How do you explain the excesses revealed by the law?

 Traditionally, the Parisian art market has been the scene of thefts and other misdeeds. In this medium, the dead came back to steal not steal anyone. There was an explosion drifts in the early 2000s, correlated with the dominant values ​​of money. This period marks the beginning of the industrialization of bad practice within that corporation. This was for a number of them, including new recruits, to make maximum money in very little time. The late 2000s was pathetic for this corporation. And what surprised me at the end of the survey, the number of commissioners complained, nearly 40%. Certainly, the internal bodies of discipline inspection have been completely failed. But these excesses would not have been possible without the complicity of the auctioneers, the commissioners were thugs, with all the ambiguity that there are around.