Macron visits the Louvre as reports of disrepair spur concern over the ‘Mona Lisa’

It served as the background for Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 presidential victory speech. On Tuesday, he returned to the Louvre to attempt some damage control after a leaked memo raised alarms about the dire state of the world’s most-visited museum.

Macron announced that the Mona Lisa will “be installed in a special space, accessible independently of the rest of the museum,” which he said will be renovated and expanded in a major overhaul.

Speaking in the room where Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece is displayed, Macron said a new entrance to the museum would be built near the River Seine and underground rooms would also be created.

While he did not disclose the cost, it is estimated that it could run into hundreds of millions of euros.

One of the ways of financing the project could be to raise prices for visitors from outside the European Union, he said. “Another way of financing the project is to increase the number of visitors to 12 million a year,” he added.

Macron visited the museum days after Le Parisien newspapers reported on a confidential memo that the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, sent to Culture Minister Rachida Dati.

According to the newspaper, the director warned of “a proliferation of damage to the museum’s spaces, some of which are in a very poor condition.”

Detailing substandard conditions like leaks and overcrowding, des Cars reportedly said in his memo that some spaces in the museum “are no longer watertight, while others are experiencing worrying temperature variations, endangering the conservation of the artworks.”

The Louvre and the Elysee Palace did not respond to requests for comment on or confirmation of the memo’s contents.

Over the last few days, Louvre employees have expressed similar concerns over flooding, lighting and safety that they say could put the artworks at risk.

“For our colleagues, it’s a bit of a daily ordeal to get organized and keep the visitor tour moving while ensuring that everything is safe,” one employee, Elise Muller, said Tuesday on French Radio RTL.

“Since we have different areas every day, we’re forced to close down areas due to the various problems that can arise in the building,” she added.

On Jan. 24, the Louvre’s workers’ union SUD Culture, in an angry statement, said the state of disrepair led to the unprecedented cancellation of an exhibition in 2023.

“For more than three years now, SUD Culture and its staff have been warning about the deteriorating state of the building, its equipment, elevators and escalators,” it said.

The museum hosted 8.7 million visitors last year as tourists flocked to the Paris Olympic Games. But in her leaked memo, des Cars warned that visiting the Louvre constituted “a physical ordeal.”

“Access to the works takes time and is not always easy,” she said. “There is no space for visitors to take a break.”

With nearly 66% of its visitors last year lining up to see Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” des Cars also said that its presentation needed to be questioned.

“Da Vinci’s masterpiece is a work of art that appeals to the whole world,” she said. “As a result of this popularity, the public flocks to the Salle des Etats without being given the means to understand the work and the artist, thereby calling into question the museum’s public service mission.”

The scrutiny around the “Mona Lisa” spurred Francesca Caruso, the regional assessor for culture in Italy’s Lombardy region, to call for the painting to be returned to Milan, home to da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

“We are ready to welcome her,” Caruso said in a post on Facebook over the weekend.

In a separate letter to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Caruso wrote, “Why not offer to host the Mona Lisa in Lombardy during the upcoming Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics?”

In 2021, des Cars became the first woman to head the Louvre, a symbol of French culture around the world. Since then, she has introduced several measures to make the museum more accessible, including a cap on visitors in 2023 to reduce overcrowding, extending opening hours, and pushing for the creation of a second main entrance.

But in her memo, the director acknowledged that a complete overhaul would most likely be a long and costly ordeal at a time when the French government is facing severe budget restraints.

Last week, Dati, the culture minister, told the French television network TF1 that she was working on a project to help finance the work required for the museum.

If implemented in January 2026, as planned, the Louvre could charge non-E.U. visitors higher prices under a “differentiated tariff policy.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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