Jon Henley, An ugly year for the Louvre: where does the world’s biggest museum go from here?, The Guardian, 1 March 2026
After a heist and the departure of its boss, the French institution wrestles with water leaks, strikes and much-criticised plans for a €1bn renovation.
Just over a year ago, Laurence des Cars, the intellectually brilliant (if famously prickly) former head of the largest and most-visited museum in the world, wrote a somewhat alarming note to her boss, France’s culture minister.
Des Cars, who on Tuesday resigned as president of the Louvre, lamented the advanced state of disrepair of the iconic museum’s buildings and galleries.
The Louvre was overcrowded, she said. Facilities were substandard, technologies hopelessly outdated. Water was coming through the ceilings. Violent temperature swings were damaging artworks. The museum had reached a “worrying level of obsolescence”.