The world’s most-visited museum, it seems, cannot catch a break lately. Unionized staff at Paris’s Louvre Museum voted unanimously on Wednesday to continue a strike that began Monday, when hundreds walked out in protest over “increasingly deteriorated working conditions,” the Associated Press reports.
The action had closed the museum on Monday, and it was closed Tuesday as per its usual schedule. It opened late and only partially on Wednesday, offering a “masterpiece route” that allows visitors to see works like the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, per the AP’s report.
About 400 staff members, represented by trade unions CFDT Culture; SNMD-CGT: Syndicat Culture Musées et Domaines; and SUD Culture Solidaires are participating from among the institution’s 2,100 staffers.
The unions were in talks on Monday with officials from the Culture Ministry, who offered to cancel a planned €5.7 million ($6.7 million) budget cut in 2026, recruit more gallery guards and visitor services staff, and raise staff pay. Union officials said the proposals were insufficient, AP reports.
The striking staff also oppose a measure to raise ticket prices for visitors from outside the European Union from €22 to €32 (about $26 to $38) to raise €15–20 million ($17.6–$23.5 million) annually to support renovations, according to Ocula.
Strikers gathered outside the museum’s trademark glass pyramid on Monday, blocking entrance, brandishing union flags, and calling for improved working conditions, higher salaries, and staffing levels, while also highlighting the building’s poor state of repair, ARTnews reported.
The unions warned culture minister Rachida Dati of their grievances and their intention to strike in a December 8 letter, dramatically stating that the staff believe themselves to be “deeply attached to their institutions and feel today that they are the last line of defense before collapse.”
They say that staff are experiencing “increasingly deteriorating working conditions,” and that “due to insufficient and improperly allocated resources,” they were “prevented from fulfilling their public service missions.” They pointed to the shocking daylight heist of $102 million in jewels on October 19 as indicative of misplaced priorities at the institution.
A budget presented in November, the letter continued, “does not address the difficulties faced by all departments and exacerbates the sense of disillusionment among the institution’s employees, particularly through the implementation of a dual pricing system.” The letter declares that the dual pricing system “tramples on our republican history and the founding universalism of the Louvre Museum.”
The union highlighted partial closures due to insufficient staffing, adding that “Visiting the Louvre has become a real ordeal.”
The unions also have opinions on how funds from a brand licensing arrangement with Abu Dhabi, estimated at €480 million ($564 million), should be spent, arguing that the money should be put toward renovating the museum building rather than on a €135 million ($158.6 million) overhaul announced last year by President Emmanuel Macron that would design new entances points and public spaces and reimagine the museum’s surroundings.
