Emmanuel Macron dressed in a blue suit speaking to the audience in front of Mona Lisa painting.” width=”970″ height=”630″ data-caption=’French President Emmanuel Macron gives a speech in front of <em>La Joconde</em> (the <em>Mona Lisa</em>) by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci on January 28, 2025. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Photo by BERTRAND GUAY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images</span>’>
A leaked memo from Laurence des Cars, director of the Musée du Louvre, was published in Le Parisien last week, sparking a national debate so urgent that French President Emmanuel Macron held a press conference at the museum this morning (Jan. 28) to assess the damage. The letter, originally intended for Culture Minister Rachida Dati, openly acknowledged that the 12th-century building housing the world’s most famous museum is not just overrun by tourists—it’s literally falling apart. Des Cars described “structural damages” due to long-delayed renovations that have become so dire that water leaks now threaten priceless art, while temperature fluctuations put conservation efforts at risk. The Louvre, she wrote, faces “the harsh reality of the state of our overcrowded buildings,” many of which are “reaching a worrying level of obsolescence.” It goes on to enumerate a list of concerns related to spaces “sometimes badly deteriorated” and “no longer watertight” and visitor experiences so grueling that, as Des Cars herself put it, a trip to the museum has become “a real physical test.”
Yet despite the Louvre’s decrepit state, its 8.9 million visitors in 2023 still made it the most-visited museum in the world, even with that number being down from 2019’s 10 million. Some renovations have already been tackled, including a three-year, €50 million overhaul of the glass pyramid’s entrance hall—the very same space where Macron hosted the official Olympic dinner. But, as Des Cars pointedly noted, the pyramid turns the hall into an inhospitable greenhouse in summer, a fact that somehow escaped planners until after the upgrades were complete.
While the Louvre has declined to issue further statements in the wake of the media fallout, The Art Newspaper reported that the museum’s leadership, internally and in communications with state bodies, has already calculated the staggering price tag for urgent renovations: a minimum of €1 billion. To put that in perspective, that’s 30 percent more than the entire €900 million reconstruction of Notre Dame, a five-year restoration effort miraculously funded by 340,000 donors from 150 countries—with corporate heavyweights LVMH (LVMHF), Kering and L’Oréal leading the charge. And now, unsurprisingly, the same French luxury behemoths are expected to step up to rescue the Louvre from its slow-motion collapse. Sources suggest LVMH is already preparing to announce its commitment to preserving this cornerstone of French cultural pride.
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Notably, France has a tax system that incentivizes companies to contribute to the preservation of national cultural heritage and institutions through the Corporate Income Tax Deduction for Patronage. Under this fiscally alluring policy, companies can deduct 60 percent of their cultural contributions from taxable income, capped at 0.5 percent of their annual turnover.
Meanwhile, Dati had already advised the Louvre to increase the price of the entrance ticket for tourists coming from outside the European Union to try to raise more funds from its own ticketing, which last year generated €161 million together with events. During his visit this morning, Macron confirmed this action.
The outlook for France’s budget deficit is even more alarming, with public debt hitting a record 113.7 percent of GDP in the third quarter, according to the National Statistics Institute in December. Worse yet, projections suggest it could climb to 119 percent by 2029, forcing some painful budget cuts and making grand-scale cultural restorations a particularly tricky sell.
Across town, the Centre Pompidou is set to undergo its own five-year renovation with €50 million from Saudi Arabia that has helped soften its €262 million price tag. The Louvre has its own outside funding sources, including its lucrative brand licensing deal with the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which brought in €83 million in 2023. But with Saudi money already flowing into French cultural preservation, it wouldn’t be shocking if the Louvre found itself next in line for a financial lifeline from Riyadh.
Italy seizes on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Having an ancient heritage and a museum system built on centuries-old foundations comes with a hefty price tag—a reality Italy knows all too well. In recent years, the country’s flagship museums and monuments have undergone ambitious renovations, not just to preserve their historic grandeur but to bring the historic facilities up to modern standards. Additionally, there have been efficiency upgrades, renovations for improved accessibility and updates to ensure displays engage today’s audiences effectively. One of the most notable of these is the ongoing renovation of the Colosseum focused on improving accessibility and restoring sections of the ancient amphitheater, which was funded to a significant degree by a generous €25 million donation. Museums like the Bargello, the National Archeological Museums in Florence or the $150 million “Grande Pompei,” among others, saw considerable investments to improve accessibility and enhance the overall visitor experience with new services.
Italy is now seizing on the Louvre’s distress call with an offer to welcome the iconic Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) back to Italy—at least temporarily. The first official to weigh in was Francesca Caruso, the regional assessor for culture in Italy’s Lombardy region, who, in a Facebook post last weekend, suggested the possibility of bringing the painting back to Milan for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. “We are ready to welcome her back,” she wrote, tagging all the major national newspapers that had reported on the Louvre’s SOS and highlighting Lombardy’s offer to temporarily house the precious painting in Milan, which could better accommodate its strict conservation requirements. While Da Vinci was not born in Milan, the city claims him as one of its own because he lived there for 17 years under the patronage of Duke Ludovico Sforza.
Des Cars’ letter highlighted the inadequate conditions of the overcrowded room where the Mona Lisa is currently displayed, emphasizing the need to “reassess” its presentation and to feature the iconic artwork in a dedicated space. While sources report that renovating an additional room specifically for the famous painting has been estimated at €400 million, Macron, speaking at the conference, confirmed that the painting will move to a new, dedicated room inside the museum.
This isn’t the first time someone has tried to bring the masterpiece back to Italy. In 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia famously stole it, driven by patriotism and the belief that it rightfully belonged to Italy. While the painting was most likely created by Da Vinci in Italy for a Florentine silk merchant who commissioned the painting of his wife Lisa del Giocondo in 1503, as reported by Vasari, Leonardo continued working on it for at least four years and eventually took it to France when he was invited by King Francis I. He kept at it until at least 1517, and after his death in 1519, the work was acquired by King Francis I, officially entering France’s national collection, where it has remained ever since—except for the three years following its theft by Peruggia.
We’re drawn to Mona Lisa’s mysterious expression, Da Vinci’s mastery of light and the painting’s unmistakable atmospheric quality, but its global fame and legendary status largely stem from the early 20th-century theft, which catapulted it into international headlines and solidified its place in cultural history. The saga ended perfectly: Peruggia was caught in 1913 after attempting to sell the work to an art dealer in Florence, and the painting was triumphantly returned to the Louvre in 1914. While debates over its repatriation have never really disappeared, Caruso later clarified in several newspapers that the offer was not about reclaiming the painting but about offering to host it while the French government decides how best to safely display it.
