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Today, the president-director of the Louvre is being heard by the Cultural Committee of the French National Assembly, after the Senate hearing almost a month ago (see in particular this article).
It is unlikely that this hearing will provide any genuinely new information, Laurence des Cars having maintained from the outset that she has nothing to reproach herself for, and that she warned about security risks as soon as she took the helm of the museum. A blatant lie, easy to prove as we have already written here and as the Cour des comptes has also affirmed. According to several consistent sources, the report of the Inspectorate General of the Ministry of Culture, already mentioned by Rachida Dati (see the article), is damning, which is why it should not be released.
The only real supporter of the president of the Louvre is Emmanuel Macron, clinging to his “Grande Colonnade” project, this 666-million-euro project that has not been studied and is not financed (it is the Cour des comptes — see the article — and ourselves who say so), and utterly useless and megalomaniac, which the Cour des comptes does not say (that is not its role) — but which we do not hesitate to affirm.
Even if the roughly 300 million euros of current cash reserves were used for this project — whereas that money should urgently be allocated to the other part of the “Nouvelle Renaissance” project, the only useful and necessary part for restoring a palace in precarious condition — more than 350 million would still be lacking, at the very least, which the Louvre hopes to finance through patronage. At present, no patron has come forward, not even Bernard Arnault, who no doubt has other priorities. And given the Louvre’s current reputation and that of this project, it is highly unlikely that this money can be found.
The Louvre is therefore engaged in a genuine headlong rush with the support of the Élysée, pressing ahead with a project announced in January and for which an architectural competition has already been launched. Let us recall that five firms have been shortlisted to participate and are currently working on their sketches. Above all, let us recall that this comes at a cost: while emergency works are not being carried out, the Louvre is paying international architects to participate in a competition for an unfunded project. What will we be told when faced with the obvious lack of money? That the project can no longer be abandoned because several million euros will already have been spent, or even — once a winner has been chosen — that this winner would have to be compensated for the cancellation of the project?
It is urgent — we keep saying — to reassess the Louvre’s priorities and cancel the “Grande Colonnade” part of the project. Major exhibitions requiring rooms larger than those under the pyramid could return to the Grand Palais (restored at high cost), as was previously the case; new entrances, smaller and less expensive, could be created to relieve pressure on the Denon wing; finally, the Mona Lisa could, for example (the matter obviously needs to be studied), be placed in the Pavillon des Sessions, now turned into the “Gallery of the Five Continents”. This latter project, absurdly pursued by Laurence des Cars, consists in adding to the masterpieces of African art — which should be displayed at the Musée du Quai Branly — objects from the Musée Guimet, which have no more place in the Louvre, as they fall outside its scope.
The sudden closure of the Campana Gallery (in fact, already often closed for lack of guards — see the article) showed yesterday that the Louvre is indeed a museum adrift. There is still time to save it, and this will not be achieved under the current management.