Louvre director Laurence des Cars has just declared that the Mona Lisa will be viewable only with the purchase of an additional ticket

The ticket will be purchased as a supplement to the ticket for the main exhibition.

"Our proposal is to accept the exceptional status of the Mona Lisa," said des Cars, calling the painting "a blessing for the Louvre".

Yet only a few days ago Macron announced a reconstruction of the Louvre by 2031, with a new space for the Mona Lisa, accessible independently. He said that it is planned to give the masterpiece new premises with a separate entrance, solely for access to the Mona Lisa, so that Leonardo da Vinci's painting would be "accessible independently of the rest of the museum and for that reason will have its own access permit".

A curious contradiction arises: presumably, the double-ticket system announced today by the director of the Louvre will operate until La Gioconda is moved to its separate space.

Only a few days have passed since the recent much-publicised "leak" of des Cars's letter to the Minister of Culture, in which all this was, in principle, already said, and now there is official confirmation