For workers, the October assault was the culmination of long-standing unanswered complaints about too many visitors and lack of resources resulting in security risks.
Workers at the Louvre Museum in Paris this Monday unanimously approved a strike for better working conditions, which means that the museum will be closed for the day.
According to the French Democratic Labor Confederation (CFDT), the vote took place during a meeting that brought together 400 workers and the approval of the strike was unanimousaccording to reports from the AP and AFP agencies.
No there is a two-sentence notice announcing the closure of the museum “at this time”, due to a “social movement”, apologizing for the inconvenience caused.
According to AFP, the management, led by an “increasingly weakened” Laurence des Cars in the words of the Mediapart newspaper, was investigating the number of non-striking workers to analyze a possible opening of the museum later.
The new strike comes about two months after the most recent almost three weeks after a in the Egyptian antiquities library, caused by the bursting of a pipe, and after meetings between the unions and the Government, which, according to workers’ representatives, did not bring anything new in terms of improvements for employees.
According to AFP, the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, admitted reversing the budget cut of 5.7 million euros announced for 2026, in a museum that last year received almost 100 million in state funds.
In 2026, tickets for non-European visitors will increase 45% for 32 euros to try to raise more revenue to meet needs.
“Visiting the museum turned into an obstacle course,” said the general secretary of the CFDT’s cultural branch, Aléxis Fritche, quoted by AP.
For its part, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) told AFP it was preparing for a “powerful mobilization” today with “many more strikers than usual”.
For workers, the October assault in broad daylight was the culmination of long-standing claims for dealing with excess visitors and lack of resources resulting in security risks and a deterioration in working conditions.
In the strike notice, issued last week and cited by the French newspaper Le Monde, the unions spoke of a lack of staff to deal with technical faults and the age of the building, at the same time that workers “suffer an incessant work schedule”.
O Louvre is the most visited museum in the worldhaving received 8.7 million visitors in 2024, almost two million above the runner-up (the Vatican museums), according to the most recent list from The Art Newspaper.
