Wildcat Strike Forces Louvre Closure
111June 18, 2025
An unplanned work stoppage by employees at theLouvrein Paris caused the museum to close for several hours on the morning of June 16, as throngs of ticketed visitors waited outside in the blazing sun. The spontaneous halt, described by a Louvre spokesperson as a “social movement,” took place immediately after a monthly staff meeting and ended after leadership representatives met with assembled gallery attendants, ticket sellers, and security personnel and heard their demands. The museum reopened around 2:30 p.m.
“We didn’t plan to go on strike, but the people are so exhausted, they can’t support the conditions getting worse and worse,” Christian Galani, a spokesman for the CGT-Culturelaborunion, which includes Louvre workers, told theNew York Times. “There are too many visitors, and the rooms are in very bad condition,” he said. “It’s very difficult for the workers.”
The Louvre is the world’s most visited museum, with some 8.7 million visitors pouring through its doors in 2024, though it was originally designed to handle about 4 million. Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, the institution received as many as 45,000 visitors per day; director Laurence des Cars in 2023 moved to cap daily attendance at 30,000 and raised basic ticket prices from €17 (about $20) to €22 (about $25).
This past January, after a memo from des Cars to French culture minister Rachida Dati detailing the disrepair into which the museum has fallen leaked to the public, President Emmanuel Macron announced a 2026 increase in ticket prices for visitors from non-EU countries. He also revealed plans for a new entrance, meant to relieve overcrowding at the Louvre’s iconic I.M. Pei–designed glass-and-steel main entrance, and detailed a scheme to move the Mona Lisa to its own underground chamber, where visitors would pay a separate fee to see the renowned da Vinci canvas.
Galani told the Times that to date, “nothing had changed,” and that staff remained stressed.