Under-pressure Louvre seeks a new renaissance

The world’s most-visited museum has shut down, with staff sounding the alarm on mass tourism. Thomas Adamson of the Associated Press reports

- Thomas Adamson of the Associated Press reports

THE Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum and a global symbol of art, beauty and endurance, has withstood war, terror and pandemic but on Monday, it was brought to a halt by its own striking staff, who say the institution is crumbling under the weight of mass tourism.

It was an almost unthinkable sight: the home to works by Leonardo da Vinci and millennia of civilisation’s greatest treasures paralysed by the very people tasked with welcoming the world to its galleries.

Thousands of stranded and confused visitors, tickets in hand, were corralled into unmoving lines by IM Pei’s glass pyramid.

"It's the Mona Lisa moan out here,” said Kevin Ward, 62, from Milwaukee.

“Thousands of people waiting, no communication, no explanation. I guess even she needs a day off.”

The Louvre has become a symbol of tourism pushed to its limits. As hotspots from Venice to the Acropolis race to curb crowds, the world’s most iconic museum, visited by millions, is hitting a breaking point of its own.

Just a day earlier, co-ordinated anti-tourism protests swept across southern Europe.

Thousands rallied in Majorca, Venice, Lisbon and beyond, denouncing an economic model they say displaces locals and erodes city life. In Barcelona, activists sprayed tourists with water pistols a theatrical bid to “cool down” runaway tourism.

The Louvre’s spontaneous strike erupted during a routine internal meeting, as gallery attendants, ticket agents and security personnel refused to take up their posts in protest over unmanageable crowds, chronic understaffing and what one union called “untenable” working conditions.