> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Louvre director Des Cars's letter to Minister Dati on museum repairs and objections to it
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-smi-prosochilos-pismo-ot-direktora-luvra-ministru-kultury-frantsii-v-kotorom-pervaia-zhaluetsia-vtoroi-na-protechki-vody-izbytochnuiu-poseshchaemost-khiluiu-infrastrukturu-i-nagruzki/
- Published: 2025-01-23T20:25:10.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:42:02.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Museums, Observations, Society, Paris

A letter from the director of the Louvre to France's Minister of Culture has "leaked" to the press, in which the former complains to the latter about leaks of water, excessive visitor numbers, feeble infrastructure and the strain on the museum caused by e.

De Carlo, the first woman to head the museum (in 2021), writes to the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati (who took over the ministry in January 2024), that the deteriorating condition of the museum threatens its world-famous collection of works of art. Some of the museum's departments are no longer watertight, while others suffer considerable temperature swings, which puts the preservation of the works at risk.

Naturally, she writes that the museum needs a major overhaul, but show me a museum director who does not complain about repairs. It is rather like school caretakers, forever in need of new curtains.

The Louvre is a French national treasure, so why not complain once more about the plaster and the number of lavatories? Perhaps a spare kopeck will drip down. What is unclear is why the director of a billionaire museum, earning more than any other museum in the world, should be grumbling about catering points and lavatories that fall short of international standards. Is it really for the Minister of Culture to settle the number of conveniences in a museum?

The signage needs a complete overhaul. You cannot be serious, Snezhana Denisovna? Perhaps the Minister might personally help you print the new signs? Or shall I have them made at my own expense? And this at a time when a considerable part of the Louvre's running costs, technical maintenance included, is already paid by the state.

The director complains that the museum's popularity places a "physical strain" on a building 232 years old. Seriously? As for the museum's main attraction, the Mona Lisa, for a single glimpse of which some 80% of all visitors come, that is, up to 30,000 people a day, De Carlo stressed the need to "reassess" its display, for instance by showing it in a separate room. Very well, that is long overdue.

I also agree with the complaints about the silly pyramid; it could quite well be abolished. According to De Carlo, in the warm season the pyramid turns into a bathhouse, and dinners held in it, such as the one Macron staged in honour of the Olympics, look "inhospitable" because of the stuffiness.

Had all of this been written by a layman, a reporter, a figure from the world of culture or an ordinary member of the museum community, it would have been a perfectly natural attempt to start a public discussion of some sore points. But since the murmuring comes from the director, in my view the true purpose of the letter is to plead poverty and bargain for something. But if you are such a brave director, one who keeps raising your museum's problems at the point of the pen, then perhaps you might begin taking real action to solve them, rather than making a din about some incomprehensible leaks by tossing such letters to journalists? If the halls with the masterpieces are leaking, act; there is no time for writing. You do not need ministerial sanction to waterproof the ceilings.