€10m-prize Heritage Lottery in September

A heritage lottery and scratchcard game to save some of France's crumbling monuments will launch in September, it has been revealed.

Scratchcards will go on sale on September 3, while the €10million-jackpot Heritage Lottery will take place on September 14 - with all revenue going to a foundation set up and run by historian and TV personality Stéphane Bern, who was asked to take charge of the scheme by President Emmanuel Macron.

A list of 250 sites published this week - shown on the map below - will be whittled down to about 100 of the most in need of renovation at a meeting next week, franceinfo reported.

The Heritage Foundation, has specified that this committee should select no more than 100 sites, including one emblematic project per region. The final list of sites to benefit from Heritage Lottery funding will be published in a few weeks.

La Française des Jeux, which runs France's lottery, estimates that dedicated game could bring in between €15million and €20million in revenue for the chosen sites. The funds will be distributed from the end of 2018.

"A quarter of the protected monuments are judged in poor condition and 5%, or about 2,000 monuments, are considered in a state of peril," Minister of Culture Françoise Nyssen told journalists when the special lottery was announced in November 2017.