Laurence de Cars: The Louvre theft was punishment for her resistance to recommendation | EUROtoday

The theft of the century in mid-October made France a laughing inventory in entrance of the entire world. While operations have been ongoing, two males have been in a position to enter the room wherein the Louvre saved the monarchy’s crown jewels because of a lifting platform. Director Laurence des Cars provided to resign after the catastrophe, however the president refused.

At that point, she obtained help from 57 colleagues all over the world, from the Prado in Madrid to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The message from the administrators of the world’s largest museums was: This can occur to any home. Anyone who reveals a piece places it in danger. The world has grow to be extra brutal, however museums should nonetheless pursue their mission and present the treasures of world cultural heritage to the best attainable variety of folks.

But for the reason that spectacular theft, the Louvre in Paris has been in a relentless disaster – and one is inclined to learn the obtrusive grievances within the largest museum on this planet as a metaphor for the state of France: apparent safety deficiencies, warning reviews that weren’t adopted up by motion, and a number of other water damages with floods that destroyed works. The 9 rooms of the Campana Gallery needed to be closed on the finish of the yr, a precautionary measure as a result of the ceilings and flooring have been at risk of collapsing. The gallery was solely reopened two years in the past, after a brand new museum idea. Apparently they have been extra involved with didactics and museum aesthetics than with safety.

There remains to be a big lack of surveillance cameras and there’s no fireplace safety grasp plan. Instead, in typical French fashion, the pharaonic main undertaking “Nouvelles Renaissance” was introduced with spectacular renovations. The Élysée Palace put it at 800 million euros, and the French Court of Auditors estimates the prices at over a billion.

The latter additionally criticizes that the museum administration has set the improper priorities. “Visible and attractive operations” have been most popular over upkeep and safety, in keeping with a report launched shortly after the theft. The unions had been stating emergencies for years. But each the automobile and its predecessor would have most popular to purchase works reasonably than make essential investments that can’t be spectacularly introduced within the media.

Since 2018, nearly 90 million euros have flowed into repairs, upkeep and restoration of the 210,000 sq. meter metropolis palace, whereas works have been bought for not fairly twice as a lot cash. The Ministry of Culture additionally had no objection to the sum of 145 million euros for which works have been bought. It is comprehensible that the acquisition of Chardin’s masterpiece “Basket of Wild Strawberries” for twenty-four.3 million euros was an artwork historian’s prime precedence. But a supervisor who had the well-being of the home in thoughts would have needed to do with out it.

Recently, a rip-off has additionally brought on a stir: for ten years, a bunch of fraudsters – together with Louvre workers and freelance tour guides – are stated to have organized group excursions with false tickets. The enterprise was so profitable that along with actual property purchases in France and Dubai, over 1.4 million euros in money was confiscated.

Everything was overshadowed by steady strikes by workers who complain about unsustainable working situations and exploitation as a result of the variety of museum guards and safety brokers was lowered regardless of rising customer numbers and their jobs have been partially outsourced. In December and January, guests to the Louvre confronted closed doorways for a number of days.

This is all a catastrophe that highlights incompetent administration. Des Cars could also be a wonderful artwork historian, however she just isn’t a succesful supervisor. But if you wish to efficiently run the most important museum on this planet with over 2,200 workers and a price range within the tens of millions, you want greater than detailed information about “The Raft of the Medusa”. Otherwise the museum tanker runs the danger of sinking itself.

Despite the charged state of affairs, des Cars didn’t attend any of the unions’ latest conferences. It is alleged that she locked herself in her workplace like a bunker, surrounded solely by her shut group. Her perspective is described as conceited, and he or she portrayed herself as infallible within the many hearings of parliament’s investigative commissions.

The picture that emerges is of a girl on the head of the Louvre, the primary on this position, who was lonely, conceited and clearly overwhelmed. She now has the operate of a “lightning rod,” says des Cars within the first interview after her resignation. That is undoubtedly true. But lightning needed to strike 100 instances earlier than it caught her.

That’s why disaster administration shines a no much less brilliant mild on the incompetence of France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati. In mid-December, they introduced that they might entrust Philippe Jost with the “reorganization” of the Louvre as a result of he had achieved the miracle of rebuilding Notre-Dame within the allotted time of slightly below six years. Nothing extra was heard from the fee after that. Jost was supposed to begin work in January. This week, throughout her listening to earlier than the Commission of Inquiry, Dati stated that this had been resolved.

The indisputable fact that Dati is now dropping des automobiles has to do together with her personal ambitions: she desires to grow to be mayor of Paris and, though the election marketing campaign is already in full swing, she has nonetheless not given up her place as minister. It is not any coincidence that she has now withdrawn her help from the Louvre director and instructed that she resign. Dati tries to clear the desk on the final second. But the chain of disasters within the Louvre additionally falls again on them.