The Louvre is the pride of France – and it’s on the verge of collapse. Can we rescue it in time? | Agnès Poirier

Long before Versailles dazzled the world, the Louvre rose from the banks of the Seine as a royal residence. 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 Enlightenment demanded that the masterpieces of the art world be made public; the revolution answered. On 8 November 1793, ordinary citizens were admitted to the Louvre’s Salon Carré and Grande Galerie for the first time, transforming a royal palace into a national art museum. Continually evolving through redesign, reconstruction and reinvention, it has survived revolutions, arson and Nazi occupation. Within its labyrinthine galleries, audacious thefts have unfolded in broad daylight, while secret acts of bravery left barely a trace in history. The Louvre is a place of enduring mystery and fantasy, belonging to both France’s collective memory and the world’s imagination. This year, however, a succession of thefts, leaks and infrastructure failures has forced the French to look again at what the Louvre has become – and what it risks losing.

More than a century before October’s extraordinary heist, another daylight robbery caused an international sensation. On 21 August 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman who had worked at the museum, removed the Mona Lisa from the wall, slipped it out of its frame, and walked out with it hidden under his coat. Convinced he was righting a historical wrong, Peruggia thought he was repatriating an Italian treasure stolen by France – in fact, Leonardo da Vinci had brought it with him when invited by François I. It took more than 24 hours for the Louvre to notice the Mona Lisa had disappeared, and another two years to recover the painting. In the meantime, crowds queued simply to stare at the empty space on the wall.

Twenty-eight years later, Jacques Jaujard, the museum’s deputy director, saved the Mona Lisa and the entire collection from the Nazis through a highly secret and audacious operation, just 10 days before the second world war broke out. With the help of hundreds of curators, loyal employees and art students, Jaujard oversaw the packing and transport of 1,862 cases of treasures to remote castles deep in France. When the Nazis arrived in Paris in June 1940, they found the Louvre empty – and Jaujard waiting at his desk.

The Louvre is made of such extraordinary tales. Scandalous thefts, mystery and acts of heroism have helped make the Louvre the most visited museum in the world today, with a recent average of almost 9 million visitors a year (and close to 10 million in 2019). Over time though, this popularity has become both a blessing and a terrible burden, and daring jewel heists are only the most eye-catching of the museum’s problems: it is bursting at the seams, at times literally.

In recent months, the Campana gallery, which houses nine rooms of ancient Greek ceramics, has closed over fears of the ceiling collapsing. Water pipes have burst, damaging the Egyptian antiquities library and 400 or so historic documents, including records of the first archaeological excavations in Egypt in the early 19th century. Laurence des Cars, the current director of the Louvre, had warned of the urgent need to modernise the museum, but seemed to wait for somebody else to act. There is some speculation that some sort of state of emergency may need to be declared, to prevent further damage to both the collection and the Louvre’s reputation. Staff represented by trade unions have been on rolling strikes since 15 December to pressurise the management and government into swift action.

The grand redesign of the Louvre, the “renaissance” announced earlier this year by President Macron, can not come soon enough. With a cost estimated at €1.15bn, to be partly funded by taxpayers, the plan includes a room dedicated solely to the Mona Lisa with an independent entrance, new galleries, updated facilities and a spectacular eastern entrance to complement IM Pei’s glass pyramid. State-of-the-art security, water, heating and electronic systems are also high on the agenda.

Meanwhile, we French have taken to rolling our eyes in despair and embarrassment at each new Louvre “misadventure”. Oh no, what now? Has someone flown away with the Winged Victory of Samothrace via drone? At this point, nothing would shock us.

A parliamentary committee investigating the theft of the crown jewels in October has now delivered damning conclusions. Over the past decade, internal reports had repeatedly warned of the Louvre’s inadequate IT and security infrastructure – one highly secure password, hilariously enough, was simply “Louvre”. Yet these warnings remained unread and buried in drawers. Many have questioned the last two directors’ sense of priorities since 2018: was it sound to spend €105m on new acquisitions while allocating only €27m for maintenance?

Finally, it seems, the urgency of the Louvre’s predicament has been grasped. In the coming weeks, the name of the winning architect for the grand redesign should be announced. Macron has stipulated that work should begin no later than 2027, and be finished by 2031. Part of the funding will come from visitors: starting in January, non-EU nationals will pay €32 for entry, while EU residents will pay €22 (under-18s and EU students will still get free admission). Seen through French eyes, mass tourism has contributed to the Louvre’s challenges, and it is only natural that it should help fund its solution.

The Louvre, at once iconic and vulnerable, revered and imperfect, carries the weight of history while grappling with the pressures of modernity. It embodies the contradictions of France itself: proud yet self-critical, global yet intensely local, eternal yet in urgent need of care. With sufficient will, funding and a bit of luck, the Louvre will survive the present chaos – and French pride will remain intact.