Louvre museum in Paris faces closure this week as unions call strike | Paris

Unions at the crisis-hit Louvre Museum in Paris will go on strike on Monday to demand urgent refurbishment and staff increases and to protest a rise in ticket prices for most non-EU visitors, including British and American tourists.

The world’s most visited museum, which has endured a difficult few months following a jewel heist, damaging water leak and gallery ceiling safety concerns, could face days of partial or full closure at one of its busiest times of the year if most of its 2,100-strong workforce votes to continue the strike.

The museum continues to be reeling from the burglary of October 19, when a gang of four broke into the museum during daylight hours, stole an estimated €88 million (£77 million) of French crown jewels within seven minutes, and then fled on scooters. The four men were arrested and brought under formal investigation, but the jewels were not found.

A water leak in November damaged 300 to 400 magazines, books and documents in the Egypt department. The gallery, which contains nine rooms containing ancient Greek ceramics, was closed due to ceiling safety concerns.

All three unions at the Louvre (CGT, Sud and CFDT) declared a permanent strike, saying: “Staff today feel like they are the last bastion before collapse.”

They said the jewel heist shed light on years of difficulties, staff cuts and underinvestment by the state at the museum, which had 8.7 million visitors last year.

Unions said it was discriminatory for the Louvre to raise ticket prices by 45% for visitors from outside the European economic area to raise revenues to fund structural improvements.

Visitors from countries such as the USA, England and China, which visit the museum the most, will have to pay 32 Euros starting from January.

“We see this as unacceptable discrimination,” said Christian Galani, a CGT union official representing Louvre workers. “Worse still, these visitors will have to pay more to see a dilapidated museum where they cannot access the full collection due to our chronic understaffing and regular closings of rooms.”

He said it was “an absolute scandal” for a museum whose collection includes works from around the world to make visitors of certain nationalities “pay the price for years of accumulated failures”.

“This goes against the universality of culture and the idea of ​​equal access,” Galani said. “For example, this will affect British tourists, but if I go to the British Museum, it’s free.”

Unions are concerned about staffing and working conditions after 200 redundancies since 2015, mostly in the security sector.

Galani, who works in the museum’s security control room at night, said the following about the strike action: “We are very infuriated, this is the only way to make our voices heard. Problems have accumulated for years and the robbery brought everything to light. Security measures for both the building renovation and the protection of the collection were neglected.”

Last month France’s state watchdog said security upgrades had been carried out “at woefully insufficient pace” and that the museum was prioritizing “high-profile and attractive operations” over protecting itself.

Guy Tubiana, a senior police officer and security adviser who participated in the culture ministry investigation following the jewelery heist, told senators he was “stunned” by what he discovered at the museum.

“There were a number of malfunctions that led to disaster, but I never would have thought there could be so many malfunctions in the Louvre,” he said.

Culture minister Rachida Dati said a preliminary investigation ordered by the government found that the risks of break-in and “insufficient investment in security measures” were “consistently underestimated”.

Philippe Jost, who is heading the reconstruction of the fire-damaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, will launch a study on the “in-depth reorganization” of the Louvre next month.

Louvre director Laurence des Cars and unions had repeatedly warned before the break-in about conditions inside the museum and the cost of maintaining the vast former royal palace.

In January, he said visiting the overcrowded building had become a “physical ordeal” and French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major new project to build a new museum entrance, giving the world’s most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa, its own room.