The director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, has found herself in an uncomfortable position following the release of a report that states her grand, €666m plan for a new entrance and a subterranean complex around the Mona Lisa is “financially unsound”—and emphasises the need to prioritise security upgrades instead.
On Thursday 6 November, Pierre Moscovici, the chairman of the Cour des comptes, the French state’s auditing body, released the report, which points out a number of wrongdoings in the management of the museum.
Published in the wake of the audacious heist at the Louvre, during which French crown jewels were stolen, the report confirms that the museum “has accumulated considerable delays in the deployment of security equipment”.
“The theft was made possible because of these inadequacies,” Pierre Moscovici told journalists at a press conference. He pointed out that a ten-year infrastructure upgrade launched in 2018 by the Louvre’s former director, Jean-Luc Martinez, has only received €3m, which is just 4% of the planned €83m budget.
A fire prevention scheme, meanwhile, is still due to be implemented more than 20 years after technical studies were undertaken to support it, he said.
Lack of security
The issue of the safety of the collections takes up only two pages of the 153-page report, which was written before the 19 October burglary. The audit instead mostly challenges the basis of Des Cars’ grand plan for the new entrance and the construction of a 22 000 sq m complex underneath the Louvre, around the Mona Lisa and an exhibition hall. The plans were announced by the French president Emmanuel Macron in January as part of broader renovation, estimated between €700m and €800m, which he said would mark a “new renaissance” of the museum.
Cour des comptes revealed that the budget for this project, estimated at €450m a few months ago, has already blown out to €666m—a 45% rise, on “a very low estimate”. It considers the plan as “financially unrealistic”, and fears it would unfairly take away resources needed more urgently for the infrastructure changes.
The report urges the Louvre to instead speed up the implementation of a €450m plan—also announced by Macron—centred on the museum’s infrastructure, stressing that the museum has the financial resources for this investment. Moscovici emphasised, however, that this means “it has to fix it as an absolute priority. The time for waiting is over.”
In its reply, the Louvre described the report as “unbalanced” and said that it “does not take into account the long term”. The infrastructure works, a statement from the museum said, need to be “articulated into the project of the Louvre Renaissance, otherwise we would only go halfway”.
