The Louvre, the world’s most visited museum and one of its most beloved artistic institutions, abruptly shut its doors on June 16 as museum workers, fed up with crowds, staged an unscheduled strike.
According to various media outlets, including the Associated Press, and reports on social media, thousands of confused visitors were corralled into chaotic queues outside, near the museum’s iconic glass pyramid. The AP reported that the trouble started during an internal meeting, when museum workers including gallery attendants and security personnel refused to take up their posts, citing poor working conditions such as “unmanageable crowds and chronic understaffing.”
The good news—for visitors, at least—is that the museum has since reopened. Some visitors affected by Monday’s strike reported on social media that they were able to use their tickets for entry the following day.
However, the incident has sounded the alarm—yet again—about the ongoing challenges of popular destinations like Paris being crushed under the weight of too many tourists. The strike at the Louvre came the day after a wave of anti-tourism protests across southern Europe on June 15, spanning Barcelona, Mallorca, Genoa, and other tourist hubs. Tactics included protesters spraying tourists with water pistols and, in at least one case, blocking a tourist bus and hanging a banner on it to protest overtourism and its detrimental effects on local residents, and more specifically, the perceived lack of effective government measures enacted to alleviate it.
The Mona Lisa will get a new room
While the French are well known for exercising their right to protest, Monday’s closure of the Louvre marks a relatively uncommon event. Prior to the unannounced strike, the previous closure was during the pandemic. However, too many visitors, not a deadly virus, were the reason for spontaneous staff strikes in 2019, and staff also staged a walkout in 2013, citing pickpockets and gangs of thieves becoming “more aggressive” and targeting both workers and visitors.
The Louvre had nearly 9 million visitors in 2024, according to a statement from the museum, 92 percent of whom “stated they were ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’” with their experience. However, the sheer volume of visitors cramming into its largest room, the Salle des États, just to snap a selfie with the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th-century masterpiece, is an increasingly common complaint.
Curbing those crowds (or, at least, redirecting them) has been a familiar topic in public discourse lately. Monday’s strike comes several months after French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a comprehensive decade-long plan to overhaul the institution, with upgrades to its aging infrastructure that aim to alleviate issues such as water leaks, temperature swings, and the sheer volume of visitors.
The new plan, which has a price tag of between $730 to $830 million and will be financed entirely from the museum’s “own resources,” will include a “special place” for the Mona Lisa. The portrait will have a new exhibition spot that’s “independently accessible compared to the rest of the museum” and has “its own access pass,” Macron said in a January press conference at the Louvre, with the enigmatic painting behind him.
The new plan also will address congestion issues at the museum’s Pyramid entrance—exactly where frustrated visitors congested after the impromptu worker strike on Monday.
