The Musée du Louvre, the world's most visited museum, was forced to close on Monday morning when staff walked off the job to protest against overcrowded galleries and “worsening visiting conditions”.
The museum's management appears to have been taken by surprise. Thousands of visitors with pre-booked tickets were left stranded for hours in front of I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid as temperatures rose to 27°C, complaining about a complete lack of information, according to the Associated Press.
The museum has not released a statement, but a spokesperson told The Art Newspaper, “the movement started spontaneously and lasted only a few hours”. The gallery attendants, ticket agents and security personnel met in the auditorium and demanded an immediate response from the management to their complaints before returning to their posts. Three representatives of the administration joined them to hear their demands and the museum was able to reopen around 2.30pm. According to a union representative, it is the second walkout this year.
Some 8.7 million visitors passed through the Louvre's doors last year. The director, Laurence des Cars, has restricted the daily number of visitors to 30,000, but workers claim the visitor flow is poorly managed and crowds are becoming less respectful towards the museum and its staff.
In response to the overcrowding, Des Cars, who has headed the Louvre since 2021, proposed the creation of a new entrance and a dedicated room for the Mona Lisa, which would be surrounded by an underground complex, capable of receiving 12 million visitors per year. The projected budget could reach an estimated €1bn and has been strongly opposed by the unions, who have stressed the deteriorating state of the museum.
Elise Muller, the general secretary of Culture Sud Union, says that “the working conditions and the infrastructure have seriously worsened in the past four years. The understaffing has become monstrous in all the areas in charge of visitors. Overcrowding is not the only problem: the tension is mostly due to the overall atmosphere, which has become catastrophic. The Louvre welcomed 15% more visitors in 2018, it was not easy, but it was better managed. Now, the staff suffers from deep contempt shown by management. For the first time in the history of the Louvre, they feel they are not part of the same team as the leadership”.