{"id":211287,"date":"2025-12-26T04:30:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T04:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/211287\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T04:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T04:30:16","slug":"louvre-under-pressure-after-disastrous-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/211287\/","title":{"rendered":"Louvre under pressure after disastrous year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Standing in front of the \u201cMona Lisa\u201d in January, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled what seemed like a winning plan. The Louvre museum would have a \u20ac1.15bn makeover, with a new entrance and a separate space for Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s masterpiece.<\/p>\n

By December, that ambition was close to unravelling. A strike by workers over pay and staff shortages has capped a grim year for the world\u2019s largest and most visited museum, following the spectacular theft of French crown jewels<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t spend hundreds of millions on a new entrance when the buildings are falling to pieces,\u201d Elise Muller, a gallery guard and Sud Culture union representative, said as the strike got under way on December 15. <\/p>\n

State auditor criticism over misguided spending has compounded calls to ditch the plans spearheaded by Macron and redirect funding towards basic maintenance. Late last month a water leak in an Egyptian wing damaged academic books while closures of other galleries in the Paris museum due to structural concerns have fuelled fears about the Louvre\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n

Under pressure, culture minister Rachida Dati has roped in Philippe Jost, the senior civil servant who oversaw the reconstruction of Notre-Dame. He would \u201cprofoundly reorganise the Louvre\u201d, she said, without providing details.<\/p>\n

\"LouvreUnion workers on strike outside the Louvre in December 2025 \u00a9 Teresa Suarez\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Macron\u2019s Nouvelle Renaissance project for the Louvre should have defined his cultural legacy, just as the museum\u2019s glass pyramid from the 1980s is indelibly associated with the late French president Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand. <\/p>\n

Instead, the series of crises has exposed more basic challenges facing the museum, leaving unions and opposition politicians calling for a sharper focus on practical fixes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ll be nothing left of it. The final great project of Emmanuel Macron is falling into the waters of the Seine,\u201d said Pierre Ouzoulias, an archaeologist by training and a communist senator on the culture committee examining the theft.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While all suspected culprits <\/a>involved in the October heist have now been arrested, the sapphire and diamond-encrusted crown jewels, taken in a daring seven-minute break-in through a first-floor window, have yet to be recovered.<\/p>\n

\"Louvre<\/p>\n

France\u2019s state auditor criticised the museum after the heist for spending too much on acquisitions and too little on security, noting that just \u20ac3mn was spent on security upgrades from 2018 to 2024, out of a planned \u20ac83mn.<\/p>\n

But parliamentary investigations into how Louvre director Laurence Des Cars and her predecessor, Jean-Luc Martinez, who left in 2021, managed the museum have also revealed glaring oversights and a botched handover between the two. <\/p>\n

Senators raised a 2017 security audit and a 2019 report identifying vulnerabilities in the Galerie d\u2019Apollon from which the jewels were stolen that were not fully acted upon. The 2019 report recommended reinforcing the window used by the burglars.<\/p>\n

\"EntranceThe entrance to the Egyptian department of the museum \u00a9 Stephane De Sakutin\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Martinez, who did carry out some unglamorous and basic repairs such as redoing toilets and signage, has said his security plans were partly derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n

Des Cars, meanwhile, defended her record, saying she was not informed of the 2019 report nor of the details of the 2017 audit until after the theft. <\/p>\n

\u201cI read the report\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. and I think I was in the same shaken state as everyone,\u201d Des Cars said. <\/p>\n

But she has also been criticised for prioritising jazzier events and taking too long on security measures of her own to roll them into the 2025 Nouvelle Renaissance plan. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe delayed everything to sell it with her big project,\u201d said Didier Rykner, founder of the Tribune de l\u2019Art magazine, of the plan.<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s security proposals had included more surveillance cameras and a control tower, in a space Des Cars converted into an artists\u2019 residency, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Louvre did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

Workers\u2019 unions have criticised the Louvre\u2019s budget plans and urged the museum to focus on repairs, calling for \u201cintelligent projects\u201d. <\/p>\n

At the strike in December dozens of workers held placards, including a replica of Th\u00e9odore G\u00e9ricault\u2019s The Raft of the Medusa deploring the Louvre\u2019s \u201cshipwrecked\u201d policies, as bemused tourists and school groups milled nearby.<\/p>\n

Striking staff called a hiatus on industrial action after four days, but said they would meet again in January to decide next steps.<\/p>\n

Unions have also condemned a proposal to raise ticket prices for non-Europeans from \u20ac22 to \u20ac32 from January, a move that would make the Louvre more expensive than New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum, calling them \u201canti-republican\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice near a furniture elevator at the Louvre used by the thieves of the crown jewels \u00a9 Dimitar Dilkoff\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Des Cars has defended the makeover plan before senators, noting that London\u2019s British Museum also intends to build a new entrance and make infrastructure updates at a reported cost of \u00a31bn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is at stake today\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009is not only to renovate and repair the Louvre, but also ensuring it does not lose its status as the most beautiful and greatest museum in the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Once the residence of French kings, the Louvre was first turned over to public displays in 1793, during the revolution. The last major overhaul transferred a wing once inhabited by the finance ministry to the museum and created the glass pyramid entrance. Designed for 4mn visitors a year, however, the Louvre now welcomes more than 9mn.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Critics argue Macron\u2019s plan to revamp one 17th-century facade into another main gateway is excessive. \u201cThere need to be new entrances, but [not] an enormous one with restaurants and shops,\u201d Rykner said. <\/p>\n

The \u20ac1.15bn plan is due to rely heavily on the Louvre\u2019s own resources instead of taxpayers. This includes \u20ac300mn from its licensing contract with its Abu Dhabi offshoot, but the museum still needs to find the rest of the money. Annual funding from patrons amounted to less than \u20ac8mn in 2024. <\/p>\n

After a bruising 2025, the outlook for 2026 looks similarly challenging. Commissioned by Dati, Jost will deliver a report on security failings and broader challenges in February. Des Cars\u2019 mandate expires in September 2026, and while Dati rejected her resignation after the theft, the director faces renewed calls to consider her position, while a blame game with Martinez has spilled into the open. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re like two school kids fighting at break time, each saying the other started it,\u201d said Ouzoulias.<\/p>\n

Illustration by Cleve Jones<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Standing in front of the \u201cMona Lisa\u201d in January, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled what seemed like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-211287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}