Louvre employees get bored with Macron’s guarantees and put themselves with a shock strike | Culture | EUROtoday
The Louvre Museum, to the shock of holiday makers who queued on Monday morning, remained inaccessible for a number of hours resulting from a shock protest of reception brokers who denounce extra tourism and the deterioration of their working circumstances. In this manner, essentially the most visited museum on this planet couldn’t open till round 14:30, inflicting large queues exterior the enclosure.
The reception and surveillance brokers protested towards the “overfreeze” of the museum and the issues of “lack of personnel,” AFP Christian Galani, a member of the National Office of the CGT-Culture Union and its consultant within the Louvre, informed AFP. When they left a gathering of a “monthly hour of union information” on the initiative of the Sud-Culture Solidaires union, the workers refused to return to their positions till the tackle listened to their calls for. The unions remorse that within the final 15 years they’ve misplaced about 200 full -time jobs and dealing circumstances have been degraded.
The protests should not new and have adopted by years. In truth, they had been one of many causes of the transforming plan that the Pinacoteca requested for the Ministry of Culture. A venture that was agreed with the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, who introduced it on the finish of January with the whole attainable pomp.
The director of the Louvre, Laurence Des Cars, the primary girl to manipulate this establishment in 230 years, had despatched days earlier than an explosive letter to the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati. In the doc, which was theoretically personal and confidential, it spoke of a panorama of maximum decline: leaks, poor conservation of artworks, deterioration of a “ancient” constructing and, above all, an unsatisfactory expertise for guests.
The establishment has in precept a capability restricted to 30,000 every day guests. The pyramid needed to permit the Louvre to obtain 4 million guests yearly. But as we speak it has greater than double (8.7 million in 2024) and one 12 months earlier than Coronavirus the museum exceeded 10 million. The go to circumstances have been degraded and there are numerous queues. In addition, the area below the pyramid was constructed when environmental requirements weren’t the identical as as we speak by way of air flow and luxury of the individuals who work and go to the museum.

The final nice reform of the Louvre occurred within the mid -80s, when the socialist president François Mitterrand occupied the Palace of Elyeso. So, amongst different issues, Ieoh Ming Pei, one of the prolific and commemorated architects on this planet, the design and building of the Great Crystal and Iron Pyramid that might serve to welcome guests in a extra orderly approach. The chaos ended then. But the period of mass tourism started. And even this reform doesn’t preserve as we speak the environmental and luxury requirements, clarify sources of Elysium. In truth, the development turns into a sort of oven the place guests who queue patiently are cooked over low warmth.
Des Cars, satisfied of the necessity to undertake the reform, described the Louvre in January as an getting older establishment that faces, amongst different issues, water leaks and temperature management difficulties within the rooms for the conservation of the works. In response, Macron introduced a colossal renewal venture, whose value is estimated at about 800 million euros over a decade.
Baptized as a brand new Renaissance of the Louvre, the venture foresees by 2031 a brand new entrance to decongest the glass pyramid, an exhibition room devoted to The Mona Lisain addition to a costlier entrance ticket for non -European guests, with the purpose of reaching the 12 million annual lengthy -term guests. The employees, nevertheless, have been planted with the arrival of summer season, the rise in temperatures and the rise within the circulation of holiday makers.
https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-06-17/los-trabajadores-del-louvre-se-cansan-de-las-promesas-de-macron-y-se-ponen-de-huelga-por-sorpresa.html