No Mona Lisa for tourists this Monday: The Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, remained closed all day, employees blocked the entrances to protest the pension reform.
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“Strike for our pensions” read the signs waved by the demonstrators, including employees of several museums, on the eve of a new mobilization day in France.
“I am sorry that we received them in such conditions,” Frédéric, the Louvre’s surveillance officer, told AFP about the tourists who came to visit the facility, which was visited by almost 8 million tourists last year.
“Precarity, social collapse, it affects all countries, there are many strikes in England, there are many strikes in Germany (…) I am convinced that among these people there are many people who understand our movement,” he says.
The Louvre was closed all day. It remains on Tuesday, the traditional day of closure to the public.
“The cup is full when you ask to be received by the government, it’s nice to see millions of people on the street who don’t give any answers. Here in the union on the street there was a will, symbolic too closing the Louvre and sending a strong signal,” says Valérie, a 50-year-old archivist, who says she too is “sorry about tourists.”
Among the tourists who were denied visits, some did not hide their disappointment, like Moses, a 26-year-old Mexican. “It’s closed and I don’t have any more days in Paris, so (…) it’s really bad for me,” he said.
Last Thursday, on the ninth day of the mobilization against the pension reform, the opening of the museum was delayed by an hour due to strikers