We have never ceased, for years, to denounce the unbelievable number of rooms closed at the Louvre, often under the pretext of works that do not exist, with the museum’s management knowingly lying to visitors. Let us recall, for instance, these two articles, here and there, from the time of Jean-Luc Martinez.
In August 2019, we wandered through a Louvre largely empty, but inaccessible to booking (see the article), a situation we had already revealed a few weeks earlier (see the article).
When Laurence des Cars took over as head of the Louvre, we waited to see what her policy would be, since we never pass judgment in advance and only work on facts. That is why, one year after her appointment, when a few decisions taken seemed to go in the right direction, we wrote in August 2022, three years ago, an article welcoming a Louvre that was now more open. It did not last long. The sad reality, shared by the museum’s staff with whom we are able to speak, is that in almost every respect the policy of the new president is even worse than that of her predecessor. And this is no exception when it comes to room openings and the impossibility of visiting the museum. The improvement was only very fleeting.
Plus aucune réservation possible avant le vendredi 22 août 2025.
Ce qui était impossible sur le site du Louvre est devenu possible : une entrée pour le jour même à 14 h.
Au prix de 42 €, au lieu de 22 €.
Des entrées se sont miraculeusement libérées pour le jour même...
The desire to justify the “Renaissance” project of the Louvre no doubt explains, to a large extent, this situation. It now results not only in ever greater closures of rooms under the pretext of imaginary works, but also in the impossibility of entering the museum while it is largely empty.
The booking system is, moreover — as usual — totally dysfunctional. Thus, on Saturday, 16 August 2025, at 12:11 pm, it was impossible to book an entry to the museum until Friday, 23 August, as our screenshot shows (ill. 1). This means that unless one had already reserved a ticket several days earlier, or went through an outside site (ill. 2) and paid almost twice the normal price (already very high), Parisians, as well as tourists visiting the capital, could no longer enter the museum for six days. Yet on Monday morning, 18 August, it was once again possible to buy tickets for that very day — which had been excluded on the Friday!
On Friday, 16 August, when no tickets were therefore on sale on the Louvre’s website, we were nevertheless able to enter thanks to our Amis du Louvre card. And we made the same observation as in 2019: visitors could no longer buy tickets even though the museum was largely empty. This was the case in particular in the French and Northern paintings rooms (ill. 4 to 7), on the second floor of the Cour Carrée and the Richelieu wing, but also in most of the Decorative Arts rooms.
To forbid art lovers from visiting the Louvre — that is the cultural democratization policy of this museum, without it seeming to bother for a second a Ministry of Culture that is totally absent.
Not only are the rooms very largely closed, but the Guaranteed Opening Plan (the name used internally [1]) or Room Opening Plan changes constantly, and in a totally incoherent manner, which greatly displeases visitors — not to mention the attendants. A single, telling example. Only a few days ago, the plan available for download on the museum’s website (as can still be seen on Webarchives) was scheduled from 12 July to 24 August 2025 (ill. 8). Now it is only from 12 July to 21 August 2025 (ill. 9), which prevents anyone wishing to book from 22 to 24 August from knowing exactly what will be open or closed.
As for those wishing to book an entry at 4:30 pm (or at 7:30 pm on late-night openings), they had better hurry. For — it is true, this is not new — the closing time of 6 pm or 9 pm is pure fiction: from 5:30 pm in the first case, and 8:30 pm in the second, an announcement is made over loudspeakers that the museum will close... in 15 minutes. Not 30 minutes, then. And at 5:45 pm or 8:45 pm, attendants ask visitors to leave. Should a visitor enter under the pyramid at 4:30 pm to reach the French eighteenth-century paintings on the second floor of the Cour Carrée, it would take at best ten minutes to get there, and they would have barely more than three-quarters of an hour before being warned of the imminent closure. One hour at most to see the works they want... provided, of course, that they are open! And all this, at full price.
This is the Louvre, the largest museum in the world, as the Minister of Culture likes to repeat. The largest, no doubt. The most disorganized, and the least welcoming — that is certain.