French State Auditor Issues Damning Report on Louvre Security
56Nov. 7, 2025
France’s court of auditors on November 6 released a report on security at theLouvreaccusing theParismuseum of prioritizing “visible and attractive” projects over upgrades to security. In publicly presenting the document at a press conference, state auditor head Pierre Moscovici cast the pace of security upgrades at the institution as “wholly inadequate” and described as a “deafening wake-up call” the October 19broad-daylight theftof $102 million worth of crown jewels from the museum’s Apollo Gallery—none of which have been recovered to date.
The report, completed before the spectacular robbery, covered management of the Louvre from 2018 to 2024. Among its findings were that museum officials had chosen to invest in high-profile acquisitions, only a quarter of which were on public view, “at the expense of the maintenance and renovation of buildings and technical facilities, particularly those related to safety and security.” As of 2024, CCTV cameras had been installed in just 39 percent of the museum’s rooms. Although this represented a 50 percent improvement since 2019, the report stated that there had been “repeated postponements of the scheduled modernization of security systems,” with cameras typically installed “only when rooms have been refurbished.” Moscovici additionally noted that a fire prevention plan for the museum had yet to be implemented despite technical studies having been undertaken to support it more than two decades ago.
The Louvre, which attracted 8.7 million attendees last year, is the world’s most visited museum and has an annual operating budget of $376 million. In recent years, staff have complained of poor working conditions brought on by overcrowding, despite director Laurence des Cars’s 2023 move to cap attendance at 30,000 visitors daily, accompanied by a ticket price increase. This past January, after the public leak of a memo from des Cars to French culture minister Rachida Dati detailing the museum’s disrepair, President Emmanuel Macron announced that non-E.U. visitors would pay higher ticket prices in 2026, and also revealed plans for a new entrance, intended to relieve overcrowding at the Louvre’s I.M. Pei–designed pyramidal main portal. Macron additionally outlined a plan to move the Mona Lisa to its own underground chamber, which museumgoers would pay a separate fee to visit. Despite these schemes, workers in June staged a wildcat strike against unfavorable working conditions, shuttering the Louvre temporarily.
The auditors’ report called the budget for the new entrance, part of a modernization plan estimated to cost $875 million, “financially unrealistic” and set forth ten recommendations for management, including raising ticket prices yet again, and reducing the number of acquisitions. The Guardian reports that Louvre management has accepted “most” of the suggestions.