Access to the Louvre Museum in Paris was blocked this morning by students who took action to express their “support” for the high school students’ movement and to denounce “police repression,” the French Press Agency reported, citing the museum’s administration and two labor unions.
“We are proud to announce that we are blocking access to the world’s largest museum,” reads a flyer seen by AFP and posted near the Louvre.
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According to the museum’s administration, this protest, organized by students from the École du Louvre, is not directly related to the museum, which was unable to open its doors as usual at 9:00 a.m. (10:00 a.m. Cyprus time).
The date, however, coincides exactly with the first anniversary of the spectacular break-in that plunged the world’s most-visited museum into a deep crisis.
According to the CGT union, which supports the action without participating in it, the museum will remain closed “at least until noon” (1:00 p.m. Cyprus time).
According to another union, the CFDT, students from the School of Fine Arts are also involved in this action, which is part of the high school student protests that began in mid-September and takes place two days after the majorof nationwide mobilization against the high cost of living, during which serious clashes occurred in many cities across France.
In their pamphlet, the students make no specific reference to this action, but they frame their protest as part of the “struggle for the right to study, to work, and to live freely under good conditions.”
The École du Louvre, housed within the Louvre, is a higher education institution offering courses in Art History, Archaeology, Epigraphy, Anthropology, and Museology, as stated on its website.
For the past year, access to the Louvre has been repeatedly disrupted by a strike movement that emerged following the break-in on October 19, 2025, and is demanding better working conditions and wages. Filed in December 2025, the labor unions’ strike notice has not yet been withdrawn, in the absence of a final agreement with the Ministry of Culture.
Meanwhile, Marseille has imposed a ban on public gatherings and demonstrations for most of the day today, according to a decree issued by local authorities following the violent clashes and looting that took place in this major city in southern France on the sidelines of Saturday’s day of protests. The ban will be in effect from noon to 8:00 p.m. local time (1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Cyprus time).
Interior Minister Laurent Nunes is expected this afternoon in France’s second-largest city, whose mayor, Benoît Payan (left), criticized the insufficient number of law enforcement officers deployed and described the prefecture’s figures—which cited up to 30,000 incidents of looting—as “nonsense.”
Meanwhile, with the country’s Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, convening an interministerial meeting this morning to address the crisis, representatives of the so-called “yellow vests” announcing that they plan to demonstrate again this coming Saturday, and as of this morning, Paris is assessing the damage—namely, destroyed buildings, businesses, urban infrastructure, and more.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez submitted his resignation to President Macron, who, however, did not accept it, taking into account—as he stated in a related announcement— —the need for continuity, under the current circumstances, in crisis management and the actions of law enforcement.
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