It is a cry of alarm. The Louvre buildings arrive at a “worrying level of obsolescence », warns the president of the establishment, Laurence des Cars, in a confidential note addressed to the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, on January 13, and revealed by The Parisian, in the January 23 edition. France's first museum may have welcomed 8.7 million visitors in 2024, but the building's foundations are running out of steam. “Some spaces are no longer airtight, while others are experiencing worrying temperature variations, endangering the conservation of the works »points out Laurence des Cars, in the three-page document whose Monde took notice.
According to our information, the rains on Wednesday January 22 caused infiltration in the Grande Galerie, one of the most visited departments of the museum, forcing agents to remove works. In October 2024, downpours had already flooded the museum's usually dry medieval moat. Old pipes can also break at any time. In November 2023, the explosion of a water pipe caused the cancellation of the exhibition “Claude Gillot, comedies, fables & arabesques” at the Pavilion de l'Horloge. Under the pyramid, agents and visitors experience the greenhouse effect during extreme heat. As for the recently restored Napoleon III apartments, the lack of air conditioning means they have to be closed during increasingly frequent heatwaves.
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