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- Presentation of the report on the Louvre by the Court of Auditors
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The report by the The French Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) on the Louvre is damning. Damning for the Louvre’s management, but not for La Tribune de l’Art. For even if it expresses it in terms no doubt more measured than ours, its main conclusion is very clear: the “Louvre New Renaissance” project has prevented the necessary works relating to the museum’s security and buildings, it is unfunded, and it has not been the subject of the required studies. We wrote all of this, with the only conclusion that counts: this project, imagined by Laurence des Cars and appropriated by Emmanuel Macron, must be abandoned. If the report does not state this explicitly – Pierre Moscovici indicates that it is not the Court’s role but that of the public authorities to decide – everything leads to this.
One figure must be highlighted. While the sum of 800 million euros in total for the New Renaissance project was circulating in the press, it is now estimated at 1 150 000 000 euros. Yes, you read that correctly: 1.15 billion euros. A completely unreasonable amount.
The Court notes, as we have repeatedly stated, that this project is actually made up of two different projects, arbitrarily combined in order to push through the one concerning the Colonnade. The part corresponding to the renovation of the building (including security) is now called “Louvre Tomorrow”, while the Colonnade component is titled “Louvre Grand Colonnade”.
If the first, essential, and amounting (for the first two phases) to 480.8 million, is fundable – as we said and as the Court confirms – the Colonnade project is not. It is amusing, as an aside, to note that it now totals 666.6 million euros (yes, within 0.6 million, it is the number of the devil!).
On the matter of security, the report is no less damning. Security was never an “absolute urgency” for Laurence des Cars.
Beyond what we read in the report and what has been written in many places, we also learn two pieces of information revealing these lapses in security. On the one hand, a forecast drawn up at the end of 2024 considered “Defer work related […] to the safety master plan”. On the other hand, in 2022, the sole indicator in the institution’s performance contract relating to “monitoring the implementation of the technical master plans” was removed.
We will therefore return in detail to this report, as well as to the points with which we disagree (notably those concerning acquisitions and those regarding the Friends of the Louvre). In the meantime, it is clear that the Louvre’s problem is not funding but prioritization and hierarchy. A problem of governance, then. It is time to draw the consequences from it.