Louvre Temporarily Closes as Employees Protest Working Conditions
63Dec. 16, 2025
TheLouvreclosed its doors to visitors on Monday, December 15, as staffersstruckin protest of what they have characterized as intolerable working conditions at theParisinstitution. TheNew York Timesreports that about four hundred of the institution’s 2,100 employees failed to appear for work, instead blocking the museum’s iconic glass pyramid entrance. The strike had beenannounced on December 8, when roughly two hundred workers representing threeunionsat the museum voted unanimously to begin rolling walkouts.
The world’s most visited art museum, the Louvre welcomes an average of 30,000 attendees each day. Despite such measures as increasing ticket prices and capping the daily amount of visitors, workers contend that the museum remains overcrowded, hot, and leaky. In October, $102 million of the nation’s crown jewels were stolen in broad daylight, and remain unrecovered; earlier this month, it became public that a leak ignored by the museum had damaged hundreds of books in the Egyptian department library. Workers in their December 8 strike filing announced that they no longer wished to negotiate with Louvre director Laurence des Cars.
Supported by French president Emmanuel Macron, Des Cars earlier this year announced plans to build a new entrance at the museum as well as an underground chamber to hold the Mona Lisa, tickets to which would be separate from general admission. Intended to further address issues of maintenance, security, and overcrowding, the measures nonetheless come with a steep price tag. Des Cars and her predecessor, Jean-Luc Martinez, are to be questioned in the French Senate on December 16 and 17 about issues facing the museum.