The French President Emmanuel Macron paid a go to to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa on Tuesday (28 January) to announce a “new renaissance” of the Musée du Louvre, after its director Laurence des Automobiles complained of its derelict state. The president didn’t give any determine for the price of the works, however his representatives cited an estimate of between €700m and €800m. Internally, Des Automobiles had put ahead a determine of €1bn in response to a number of sources.
On Tuesday Macron endorsed her pharaonic plan, estimated at €400m, for a brand new entrance on the museum’s japanese wing, adopted by subterranean areas, together with a room aside for the Mona Lisa, with a particular entrance ticket, an exhibition gallery and academic areas, together with reception infrastructure. The president predicts that customer numbers will attain 12 million (up from 8.9m in 2023) when the brand new entrance opens in 2031. It will be related to a pedestrian space main in the direction of the Samaritaine, the LVMH luxurious lodge and mall.
The mission, Macron stated, is “sensible” and may be financed by the museum’s incomes and sponsorship (though the French state covers 66% of the donations as tax reductions). He confirmed that, to assist finance this endeavor, ticket costs for vacationers coming from exterior the European Union shall be elevated from 1 January 2026. However no finances specifics have in any other case been supplied aside from a €10m funding by the Tradition Ministry for preparatory research this 12 months.
The state will conduct a “no much less colossal mission”, additionally estimated at greater than €400m, to repair and renovate all of the museum’s infrastructure and restore the Grande Galerie of Italian portray, Macron stated. After the five-year reconstruction of Notre Dame cathedral, the president offered the plan as “a brand new step for the nation”.
A number of media shops famous that the embattled president, who has misplaced management of the parliament and the federal government, is desperately in search of a technique to shore up his legacy. It is not going to be easy as France is struggling to fulfill finances cuts to cut back a file public deficit.
The day earlier than Macron’s go to to the Louvre, the federal government spokesperson Sophie Primas stated the president “is just talking for himself”. “There is no such thing as a means the state will present €500m to the Louvre and there shall be no supplementary finances to the €100m allotted this 12 months to assist the museum,” she insisted.
Worker unions on the Louvre have additionally joined a rising tide of essential voices from the cultural neighborhood, denouncing the large price of the “gigantic and Paris-centred mission”, and claiming the Louvre has not invested in its upkeep for the previous 4 years.
