PARIS -- Long lines beneath I.M. Pei's glass pyramid have become as much a part of the experience as the " Mona Lisa " itself. Now the Louvre is putting a higher price on that pilgrimage, raising admission prices on Wednesday for most non-European visitors by 45% as it tries to shore up finances after repeated strikes, chronic overcrowding - and a brazen French Crown Jewels heist that shook the institution.
Charles V kept his celebrated library here; Henri IV installed his cabinets of paintings, objets d'art and arms, and created within its walls a veritable city of artists, where cabinetmakers, tapestry-makers, painters and armourers lived and worked. Under Louis XIII, coins, medals and the Louvre's printing press were added; under Louis XIV came casts, antiquities and the academies of architecture, the arts and the sciences.
The Louvre Museum on Tuesday installed metal bars over the windows of the Apollo Gallery, where thieves broke into the Paris landmark to make off with crown jewels in a recent daylight robbery. "This is one of the emergency measures decided after the theft," the museum's deputy administrator Francis Steinbock told AFP. Early in the morning, workers on the gallery balcony helped position a large grille hoisted by a crane to secure it to the gallery's tall French door windows.
It seems like the only way the Musée du Louvre can catch a break these days is through its pipes, after a water leak that damaged hundreds of books on-site came to light this weekend. Following the revelation of water damage underscoring the urgent need for the museum's renovation, three culture unions representing staff at the Louvre issued a joint notice today warning of a rolling strike beginning Monday, December 15.
For years, the Louvre has been struggling with a combination of old, weathered infrastructure and increased foot traffic brought about by mass tourism. But in 2025, the museum has been hit by the full consequences of operating out of a relatively un-updated building to house some of the world's most influential (and valuable) art. Here's everything you need to know about the Louvre's horrible, no good, very bad year.
Host Ben McPartland is joined by The Local France's Emma Pearson, Genevieve Mansfield and John Lichfield to discuss all the latest news and talking points from France. A few weeks after that 88 million jewel heist, Paris' Louvre museum is back in the news - this time with concerns about 'structural weaknesses'. Plus, is it really true that the museum's computer password was 'louvre'? Find the Talking France podcast on Spotify or Apple, download here or listen on the link below.
The Louvre 's horrible, no good, very bad autumn continues. On Monday, the museum announced that it was temporarily closing some offices and one public gallery after a recent audit found structural weaknesses in some beams in the building. In a statement, the museum said that a technical report submitted last week found "particular fragility of certain beams holding up the floors" of the second level of the the Louvre's southern Sully wing because of "recent and unforeseen developments." Experts are currently assessing the damage.
My faces are a mixture of the past and the present. I cannot paint the horrors of the ongoing genocides of our times directly, but their shadows did affect the mood under which these faces were made. Portraiture deals with likeness and the recognition of people known. Faces deal with the nameless. They include those dehumanised, like fugitives, branded as aliens.
When 15-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux realised an Associated Press photo of him at the Louvre on the day of the crown jewels heist had drawn millions of views, his first instinct was not to rush online and unmask himself. Quite the opposite. A fan of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot who lives with his parents and grandfather in Rambouillet, 30km (19 miles) from Paris, Pedro decided to let the mystery linger.
There's been nonstop news coverage since two men were arrested Saturday night - one, as he tried to board a plane to Algiers, a second in the Paris suburbs. They were tracked down through their own fingerprints and DNA on objects left behind at the scene of the crime - a circular saw, a reflective vest, a motorcycle helmet, a gas canister, a glove and a walkie-talkie. French media say the men were already known to police.
A break-in at the Louvre in the French capital Paris on Sunday saw criminals make off with "priceless" jewelry, according to France's culture minister. Rachida Dati said the incident occurred as the museum, one of the world's most famous, opened its doors Sunday morning. "A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the Louvre Museum," she wrote on X. The museum confirmed it would be closed for the day "for exceptional reasons."
Bohbot's photographs transform the Louvre into a 'living architectural organism,' emphasizing calm spatial encounters through the use of natural light and architectural details.
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