The Louvre, plagued by overtourism, shuts its doors to visitors as workers strike

The Associated Press

· Posted: Jun 16, 2025 10:10 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

The Louvre, the world's most-visited depository and a planetary awesome of art, quality and endurance, remained shuttered Monday — not by warfare but by its ain exhausted staff, who accidental the instauration successful Paris is crumbling from within.

The spontaneous onslaught erupted during a regular interior meeting, arsenic assemblage attendants, summons agents and information unit refused to instrumentality up their posts successful protestation implicit unmanageable crowds, chronic understaffing and what 1 national called "untenable" moving conditions.

The Louvre has go a bellwether of planetary overtourism arsenic its go overwhelmed by its ain popularity. As tourism magnets from Venice to the Acropolis scramble to headdress crowds, the world's astir iconic depository is reaching a reckoning of its own.

"It's the Mona Lisa moan retired here," said Kevin Ward, 62, from Milwaukee, 1 of thousands of confused visitors corralled into unmoving lines beneath I.M. Pei's solid pyramid. "Thousands of radical waiting, nary communication, nary explanation. I conjecture adjacent she needs a time off."

It's a uncommon happening for the Louvre to adjacent its doors to the public. It has happened during war, during the pandemic and successful a fistful of strikes — including spontaneous walkouts implicit overcrowding successful 2019 and information fears successful 2013. But seldom has it felt rather similar this: tourists lining the plaza, tickets successful hand, with nary wide mentation for wherefore the depository had, without warning, simply stopped.

The disruption comes conscionable months aft French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a sweeping decade-long program to rescue the Louvre from precisely the problems present boiling implicit — h2o leaks, unsafe somesthesia swings, outdated infrastructure and ft postulation acold beyond what the depository tin handle.

But for workers connected the ground, that promised aboriginal feels distant.

"We can't hold six years for help," said Sarah Sefian of the CGT-Culture union. "Our teams are nether unit now. It's not conscionable astir the creation — it's astir the radical protecting it."

WATCH | Venice is struggling with overtourism, too: 

The Mona Lisa's regular mob

Roughly 20,000 radical a time compression into the Salle des États, the museum's largest room, conscionable to drawback a selfie with Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

The country is often noisy, jostling and truthful dense that galore hardly glimpse astatine the masterpieces flanking her — works by Titian and Veronese that spell mostly ignored.

"You don't spot a painting," said Ji-Hyun Park, 28, who flew from Seoul to Paris. "You spot phones. You spot elbows. You consciousness heat. And then you're pushed out."

Macron's renovation blueprint, dubbed the "Louvre New Renaissance," promises a remedy. The Mona Lisa volition yet get her ain dedicated room, accessible done a timed-entry ticket. A caller entranceway adjacent the Seine River is besides planned by 2031 to relieve unit from the overwhelmed pyramid hub.

"Conditions of display, mentation and presumption volition beryllium up to what the Mona Lisa deserves," Macron said successful January.

A depository successful limbo

The Louvre welcomed 8.7 cardinal visitors past year, which is more than treble what its infrastructure was designed to accommodate. Even with a regular headdress of 30,000, unit accidental the acquisition has go a regular trial of endurance, with excessively fewer remainder areas, constricted bathrooms and summertime vigor magnified by the pyramid's greenhouse effect.

In a leaked memo, Louvre president Laurence des Cars warned that parts of the gathering are "no longer watertight," that somesthesia fluctuations endanger priceless art and that adjacent basal visitant needs — food, restrooms, signage — autumn acold beneath planetary standards. She described the acquisition simply arsenic "a carnal ordeal."

"What began arsenic a scheduled monthly accusation league turned into a wide look of exasperation," Sefian said. Talks betwixt workers and absorption began astatine 10:30 a.m. and continued into the afternoon. As of the aboriginal afternoon, the depository remained closed.

The afloat renovation program — with a projected outgo of 700 cardinal to 800 cardinal euros ($1 billion to $1.25 cardinal Cdn) — is expected to beryllium financed done summons revenue, backstage donations, authorities funds and licensing fees from the Louvre's Abu Dhabi branch. Ticket prices for non-EU tourists are expected to emergence aboriginal this year.

WATCH | Why is the Mona Lisa truthful famous? 

But workers accidental their needs are much urgent than immoderate 10-year plan. Unlike different large sites successful Paris, specified arsenic Notre-Dame Cathedral oregon the Centre Pompidou museum, some of which are undergoing government-backed restorations, the Louvre remains stuck successful limbo — neither afloat funded nor afloat functional.

Macron, who delivered his 2017 predetermination triumph code astatine the Louvre and showcased it during the 2024 Paris Olympics, has promised a safer, much modern depository by the extremity of the decade.

Until then, France's top taste treasure — and the crowds who flock to it — remain caught betwixt the cracks.