Strife-hit Louvre forced to close major gallery

Part of the Louvre has been shut down due to structural weakness a month after it was robbed. Photo: AAP
France’s Louvre Museum has closed a gallery hosting Greek vases and office spaces as its structures designed in the 1930s are in a dire state, the world’s most visited museum said.
Monday’s announcement (local time), came less than a month after a daring heist exposed the famous Paris art museum’s vulnerabilities.
Louvre management said a technical report showed weakness in the beams under the second floor of the Sully wing meant it had to close the Campana gallery on the first floor and relocate 65 museum staff from the second.
The Campana gallery is next to the Apollo gallery, home to the French crown jewels that were targeted in last month’s heist.
“Staff representatives have been warning about the condition of the building for years, because it affects working conditions and visitors,” said Valerie Baud of the CFDT union.
“But we didn’t realise it was this bad,” she said. “It is a major deterioration in the situation.”
After a heist carried out with relative ease, the closure of the gallery is another sign of the Louvre’s dereliction, as highlighted by a state auditor’s report that said management had neglected security and infrastructure in favour of artwork acquisitions and post-pandemic relaunch projects.
On October 19, two men parked a movers’ lift outside the building, rode up to the second storey, smashed a window, cracked open display cases with angle grinders and drove away on motorbikes with historical jewels worth $US102 million ($A157 million).
The jewels have not yet been recovered, though four suspects are being investigated.
Originally built in Paris in the late 12th century, the Louvre Palace was for centuries the official residence of the kings of France. Eventually, Louis XIV – weary of rebellious crowds in Paris – abandoned it for Versailles, after which it became a museum for the royal art collection in 1793.
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