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The Louvre could eventually have to shut its doors to the public unless France’s next government backs a sweeping transformation of the world’s most-visited museum, its director has warned.
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Christophe Leribault told Le Figaro on Wednesday that the museum would seek private funding for the work, but that a major injection of public money would have to be approved after France’s national elections next year.
“Whoever forms the next government must keep in mind that if the Louvre is not repaired, updated, and transformed, it will very quickly fall behind and will eventually have to close its doors to the public. That would be a disaster,” he said.
Successive minority governments have struggled for years to pass annual budgets, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is trying to rein in public spending to reduce France’s vast deficit.
A year on from the heist
Leribault, an art historian who previously ran the Musée d’Orsay, took over in February after Laurence des Cars resigned in the fallout from last year’s jewel theft.
On 19 October 2025, a four-man gang used a lorry-mounted lifting platform to break into the Apollo Gallery and, in broad daylight, took eight pieces of the French Crown Jewels worth an estimated €88 million. A Senate inquiry later found that only one of two cameras covering the break-in point was working. The jewels have never been recovered.
Speaking to AFP ahead of the anniversary, Leribault said an €83 million security masterplan was “moving forward at speed”. Measures include a new head of security post, an upgraded camera network – found to have old cameras and major gaps – and better surveillance around the perimeter and at access points.
No ‘miracle’ solution
Leribault argued that lasting improvements could only come as part of a wider overhaul of the museum, which welcomed around nine million visitors last year.
“The operations needed to secure the museum require work on the historic building and its infrastructure,” he wrote. “There is no easy, miracle ‘surface’ solution. Everything is interconnected, everything is linked.”
The museum first opened its doors the public in 1793 and celebrated it 233rd birthday this summer.
The museum’s problems include old plumbing, badly insulated galleries and cramped public areas. A leaked memo from des Cars in January 2025 said some areas “are no longer watertight” and that “visiting the Louvre is a physical ordeal”. In February, a burst heating pipe damaged a ceiling painted by Charles Meynier in 1819.
The scale and cost of the work have become highly political. President Emmanuel Macron has championed the “Louvre – New Renaissance” project, which includes a new entrance and has been estimated by the government at €700–800 million over ten years, partly funded by a 45% rise in ticket prices for most non-European visitors.
Trade unions have criticised Macron and des Cars for prioritising grandiose plans for an architectural overhaul instead of more modest changes that would improve the visitor experience.
Additional sources • AFP
