In France, visions of a ‘very grand Louvre’ collide with hard budget realities – The Art Newspaper

Soon after French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Laurence des Cars as director of the Louvre in 2021, she gathered her entourage to tell them of her dream for a “very grand Louvre”, much greater than the “Grand Louvre” inaugurated 36 years ago by President François Mitterrand.

Des Cars’s vision included a new entrance on the eastern wing leading to a subterranean complex around a special room for the Mona Lisa. She estimated the total cost of the project at €1bn; half for this new complex, and half to renovate the buildings’ infrastructure. No one, says a participant at the meeting, believed that such a grandiose plan was realistic when France is struggling with a record budget deficit. When she presented her plan to the presidential palace in 2023, Des Cars was met with stony silence.

In April 2024, in front of parliament’s culture committee, Des Cars opted for a much louder cry for help. She called for an emergency plan to repair a “decaying museum whose structural needs had been neglected” to the point of “threatening the collections”. Des Cars did not mince her words: visiting the Louvre was “an ordeal”, she said: “Visitors have no space to take a break, and food outlets as well as toilets are insufficient and well below international standards”. Her grim overview, posted on YouTube, was ignored by the media.

In January 2025, the Louvre director used the same words in a “confidential note” to the culture minister, Rachida Dati. The note was immediately leaked to the daily newspaper Le Parisien—and this time, a media frenzy erupted. “The Louvre is in danger: hundreds of millions of euros needed to save it,” blared the newspaper.

Four days later, Macron pledged to come to the rescue of “the jewel of this nation”. Speaking in front of the Mona Lisa, the president did not elaborate on the museum’s structural problems. But he presented, down to the last detail, the project for a new entrance and huge space under the Renaissance section of the royal palace.

The Mona Lisa would be moved to a dedicated hall (covering 2,000 sq. m according to des Cars, compared to 700 sq. m for the current overcrowded location), accessible with a special ticket added to the entrance ticket. The new spaces would also include a major exhibition hall, a restaurant and facilities for receiving 70,000 people a day.

Macron claimed this vast plan, which he compared to Notre-Dame’s reconstruction, could be implemented by 2031. He pledged that the Louvre will then welcome up to 12 million visitors annually—30% more than today. In the meantime, he promised the Mona Lisa a “more peaceful environment”. Behind him, she smiled.

Revenue from Abu Dhabi and sponsorship

Funding for the construction would be partly covered by an increase of the €22 entrance ticket for non-European tourists, Macron said. He argued that the project could also be financed by revenues from Abu Dhabi and sponsorship deals (although two-thirds of these are covered by the state in the form of tax rebates). But he did not give any hint on the structure and even the amount of the budget. An adviser to Macron estimated it would cost around €400m, to which the same amount would be added by the state to renovate infrastructure.

But Macron has lost control of parliament and does not have access to the nation’s purse strings. Sophie Primas, a government spokeswoman, immediately said these promises “only commit the president, who spoke for himself”.

“At a time when the government is trying to cut spending, there is no way that we could add a €500m line to the budget for the Louvre,” she said. For the moment, the culture ministry has only agreed to spend €10m on preliminary studies. The media commented that the embattled head of state was desperately trying to “grab a place in the spotlight” and burnish his legacy.

Attention has turned to Bernard Arnault. The billionaire founder of the luxury goods company LVMH is on good terms with Macron and his wife, Brigitte, who enjoys some influence on cultural matters. His company is a traditional sponsor of the Louvre. Des Cars is clearly courting him, opening an exhibition on haute couture (Louvre Couture, until 21 July), setting up a gala dinner surrounded by antique sculptures in a Louvre courtyard during Fashion Week, and proposing a wide pedestrian space to connect the Louvre’s new entrance to La Samaritaine, an LVMH hotel and shopping mall.

For now the company has only said it is “paying attention to the project”. In any case, sponsorship from LVMH alone would not be sufficient. All this comes at a time when the Centre Pompidou is already struggling to find €170m to renovate
its galleries.

The employees’ unions were prompt to react. The Confederation générale du travail (general confederation of labour) complained of the “undemocratic” rise in ticket prices, while the museum remains “understaffed”. Since the Grand Louvre was inaugurated in 1989, it has never been able to open all its galleries at once, a former executive says.

“This has to stop,” Elise Müller, the national secretary of the Sud Culture union, tells The Art Newspaper. “The mind-boggling plan for a new entrance is aberrant, it will not fix the derelict state of the museum.” According to the union, Des Cars dropped a ten-year plan adopted in 2018 for fixing and restoring the historical palace. (Asked to comment on this, a Louvre spokesperson did not deny it). “Yes, the Louvre is in a dire state,” Müller says. “The truth is that the situation has seriously worsened for the past four years.” According to Müller, “it is insane to plan a subterranean museum on the bank of the Seine”, a flood zone from which the Louvre moved all its reserves just a few years ago.

Meanwhile, in an article describing the Louvre under Des Cars as “the palace of all excess and caprice”, the magazine L’Express suggests that visiting conditions could be improved at a much lesser cost by hiring more staff, enabling the museum to open existing entrances that have been closed over the years and to extend opening hours (the Louvre’s rooms close at 5.30pm).

The magazine points out that “none of the Louvre’s annual activity reports has ever mentioned something close to an emergency”. According to these public reports, €200m was invested to renovate infrastructure between 2018 and 2022, including €50m spent on the entrance hall under the glass pyramid. The state auditor is currently reviewing figures for a report expected by the summer.