The French President Emmanuel Macron paid a visit to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa on Tuesday (28 January) to announce a “new renaissance” of the Musée du Louvre, after its director Laurence des Cars complained of its derelict state. The president did not give any figure for the cost of the works, but his representatives cited an estimate of between €700m and €800m. Internally, Des Cars had put forward a figure of €1bn according to several sources.
On Tuesday Macron endorsed her pharaonic plan, estimated at €400m, for a new entrance on the museum’s eastern wing, followed by subterranean spaces, including a room apart for the Mona Lisa, with a special entrance ticket, an exhibition gallery and educational spaces, along with reception infrastructure. The president predicts that visitor numbers will reach 12 million (up from 8.9m in 2023) when the new entrance opens in 2031. It would be connected to a pedestrian area leading towards the Samaritaine, the LVMH luxury hotel and mall.
The project, Macron said, is “realistic” and can be financed by the museum’s incomes and sponsorship (although the French state covers 66% of the donations as tax reductions). He confirmed that, to help finance this undertaking, ticket prices for tourists coming from outside the European Union will be increased from 1 January 2026. But no budget specifics have otherwise been provided except for a €10m investment by the Culture Ministry for preparatory studies this year.
The state will conduct a “no less colossal project”, also estimated at more than €400m, to fix and renovate all the museum’s infrastructure and restore the Grande Galerie of Italian painting, Macron said. After the five-year reconstruction of Notre Dame cathedral, the president presented the plan as “a new step for the nation”.
Several media outlets noted that the embattled president, who has lost control of the parliament and the government, is desperately looking for a way to shore up his legacy. It will not be simple as France is struggling to meet budget cuts to reduce a record public deficit.
The day before Macron's visit to the Louvre, the government spokesperson Sophie Primas said the president “is only speaking for himself”. “There is no way the state will provide €500m to the Louvre and there will be no supplementary budget to the €100m allocated this year to support the museum,” she insisted.
Employee unions at the Louvre have also joined a rising tide of critical voices from the cultural community, denouncing the huge cost of the “gigantic and Paris-centred project”, and claiming the Louvre has not invested in its maintenance for the past four years.