Louvre workers vote to strike in another blow to the Paris museum

A board outside the Louvre advises opening delays (Michel Euler/AP)

Workers at the Louvre Museum voted on Monday to strike over working conditions and other issues, a union said, dealing another blow to the Paris museum after an embarrassing jewellery heist in October.

The CFDT union said the vote was taken at a meeting of 400 workers on Monday and that they decided to strike for the day.

The world’s most-visited museum did not open as scheduled. A notice on its website advised would-be visitors that “the museum is closed for the moment”.

The strike vote followed talks last week between unions and government officials including culture minister Rachida Dati.

Union leaders said the talks had not alleviated all of their concerns about staffing and financing for the Louvre.

Soldiers outside the Louvre after the jewel heist (Emma Da Silva/AP)

“Visiting the museum has become an obstacle course,” said Alexis Fritche, general secretary of the culture wing of the CFDT union.

The museum has been struggling with the aftermath of a daylight heist and an earlier staff strike that abruptly shut it and stranded thousands of visitors beneath I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid.

Last month, the Louvre also announced the temporary closure of some employees’ offices and one public gallery because of weakened floor beams.

A report after a Senate inquiry said last week that the thieves escaped with barely 30 seconds to spare, citing broken cameras, outdated equipment, understaffed control rooms and poor co-ordination that initially sent police to the wrong place.

For employees, the high-profile incident crystallised long-standing concerns that crowding and thin staffing were undermining security and working conditions at a museum that welcomes millions of visitors each year.

Those tensions spilled into public view in June, when striking workers brought the museum to a halt.

Visitors with timed tickets waited in long, unmoving lines outside as the doors failed to open, an image that rippled across social media and underscored how fragile operations at the sprawling institution had become.

Unions say talks with the government have made progress but remain incomplete.

Visiting the museum has become an obstacle course

Separately, the culture ministry said on Sunday it has tasked Philippe Jost, who oversaw the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris, with a mission to propose a deep reorganisation of the Louvre after the findings of an administrative inquiry.

Three rounds of discussions last week produced “quite important progress” on promises of additional full-time staff and increased state funding, Alexis Fritche, general secretary of the culture wing of the CFDT union, told The Associated Press.

But the proposals must be confirmed in writing and do not yet meet all demands, he said.

“It’s not completely satisfying,” Mr Fritche said. Employees are “quite determined”, he added, while noting their strong attachment to keeping the museum open to the public.

In their strike notice to Ms Dati last week, the CFDT, CGT and Sud unions said the Louvre was in “crisis” with insufficient resources and “increasingly deteriorated working conditions”.