Embattled by an avalanche of controversies within the wake of the theft of crown jewels final October, the director of the Musée du Louvre, Laurence des Automobiles, resigned on Tuesday (24 February).
Des Automobiles introduced her resignation to French president Emmanuel Macron, who praised “an act of accountability, at a time when the best museum on the planet wants stability and a robust new dedication to undertake the work for its safety, its modernisation” and the controversial plan referred to as the “Louvre New Renaissance”. A spokesperson for the Presidential Palace stated that her successor shall be appointed on Wednesday (25 February).
Des Automobiles has now been requested to guide a mission for the cooperation between museums of the G7 member nations, beneath French chairmanship this yr.
Someday after the 19 October heist, Des Automobiles had proposed her resignation to the French tradition minister, Rachida Dati, who declined to just accept it. Since then, scandals have been piling up and she or he has been struggling to maintain her submit, going through mounting calls in Parliament for her departure.
A sequence of official studies underlined the “appreciable delays” within the upkeep of the infrastructure, “in favour of an event-driven coverage”. Since her arrival, in Might 2021, lower than 3% of the museum’s funds has been spent on security plans, in opposition to theft, hearth or floods. As a substitute, with president Macron’s help, she launched an formidable plan for a brand new entrance and a subterranean gallery constructed round its star attraction, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, at an estimated value of €666m.
The unions representing staff on the Louvre demanded the “Louvre New Renaissance” challenge to be dropped, and advocated as a substitute for spending to deal with badly wanted primary technical works that would add as much as €500m. In mid-December, staff launched a sequence of rolling strikes, the longest within the museum’s historical past.
Incidents of varied types and sizes—from vital to catastrophic—haven’t stopped for the reason that heist in October: leaks within the galleries and a library; rooms closed due to cracking beams and a ten-year lengthy ticket fraud. Final Thursday, members of the French parliament who’re a part of an investigation committee trying into points on the museum denounced a “hyper presidency which has gathered failures”. The chair of the committee, Alexandre Portier, added that in “another nation or institution, this record of failures would have since lengthy led to the departure of the director”.
