Macron to visit Louvre after leaked memo warns of museum's 'poor condition'

French President Emmanuel Macron will be touring the Louvre on Tuesday, days after the museum’s director issued a warning about the dire conditions for visitors and artefacts at the iconic Paris landmark.

The head of state will arrive at the world’s most visited museum on Tuesday afternoon, the Élysée said in a statement last week announcing the visit.

“The Louvre is a symbol of France, it is a source of French pride,” a presidential official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

“It would be wrong to remain deaf and blind to the risks affecting the museum today.”

Like other French national museums, the Louvre is shut on Tuesday, meaning the president will not cross paths with the general public on his visit.

The move was announced after it emerged this week that Laurence des Cars, the first woman head of the French landmark, had written a memo about her concerns to Culture Minister Rachida Dati earlier this month.

She warned about the “proliferation of damage in museum spaces, some of which are in very poor condition”.

Furthermore, some areas “are no longer watertight, while others experience significant temperature variations, endangering the preservation of artworks”, she added.

Even the museum’s most modern addition – a glass pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei and inaugurated in 1989 – comes in for severe criticism because of its “major shortcomings”.

It was used by President Emmanuel Macron for a state dinner ahead of the opening of the Paris Olympics last July, but des Cars said it acted like a greenhouse on hot days and became “very inhospitable” as well as being noisy.

Despite the French government’s budget problems and the imminent closure of the Pompidou museum for renovations, des Cars said the Louvre required an overhaul that would likely be costly and technically complicated.

A total of 8.7 million people visited its famed galleries last year – around twice the number it was designed for.

Des Cars expressed concern about the quality of the user experience.

Tourists have long complained about the queues to view the Mona Lisa, which is the most popular attraction in the museum and displayed in its largest room.

The memo stressed the need to “reassess” how Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece is presented to the public, with des Cars saying last year that it needed its own dedicated room.

Since taking over as boss of the institution in 2021, des Cars has spoken out publicly about the museum reaching “saturation point”.

One of her first major measures was to impose a cap on visitors of 30,000 per day and extend opening hours.

She has also backed an idea to create a second main entrance other than the pyramid to “irrigate” the rest of the museum.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

France24