The Louvre Museum must keep its doors closed in the morning, when visitors are supposed to be able to begin entering its galleries. The workers decided to keep the community operating during this time. This is clear to tourists on the street this month. The convening unions were unable to meet the director of the Laurence des Cars art gallery. Despite the employees’ refusal, the museum decided around 11:30 a.m. to partially open its doors, keeping certain rooms closed.
Elsewhere, the museum remained closed for the weekly rest. But this time, the visitors were convinced that they would eventually open and, from there, they formed an endless glue around the crystal pyramid from which the gallery is accessed. It’s true, a cartel – the same as the moon – informed the many visitors of a delay in the opening of the museum. “We know there are problems, but I don’t think the Louvre will close for three days in a row. That would be something unusual, so we will wait because we have tickets and we are alone for two days in Paris,” explains Torsten, a Berliner accompanied by his entire family.
The assembly, made up of around 300 employees, voted unanimously in favor of Hulga. However, after 11:30 a.m., the museum management announced that the doors would be open, but only partially, with some rooms closed. A measure, among others, that aims to alleviate the millions lost by returning ticket money to visitors who cannot access the venue, as happened during the moon.
Valérie Baud, representative of the CFDT union, had warned an hour earlier against reopening the museum under these conditions, a few months after the spectacular theft of the Corona gold jewels: “The Louvre administration must not endanger the security of the establishment,” she warned. “The preview of the Huelga was maintained and the Huelga was voted unanimously,” he insisted. “The proposals from the Ministry of Culture were deemed insufficient and unacceptable by staff,” commented the CGT on its Instagram account.
Unions called the huelga to protest problems of staff shortages, the deterioration of the building and the increase in prices for non-EU visitors. Last month, a crisis meeting was held with the unions of the Ministry of Culture, on the front line on this issue, to respond to the indignation of workers, also fueled by the succession of setbacks of the robot (destruction of a gallery, old works damaged by water filtration, etc.).
A chain of negligence which allowed the robot to reach the previous director of the museum, Jean-Luc Martinez, who was the subject of two alarming security audits during his mandate (2013-2021). This time, the Senate committee investigating the matter rejected the hypothesis of “negligent anti-robot prevention” within the museum. “Contrary to what he read, the culture of prevention against theft had not disappeared,” he declared during his first appearance before the Senate Cultural Affairs Committee.
Until now, this senior official had largely fallen on the sidelines of the controversy which torments his successor, Laurence des Cars, since the explosion of the robot on October 19 which led to the discovery of the museum’s lack of security equipment. However, it was under his presidency that security audits were carried out in 2017 and 2019, one of which revealed the “vulnerability” of the counter used by the thieves in October.
This quarter will be the turn of the current director, Laurence des Cars, who will return to the Senate to deepen her explanations.
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