PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that the Louvre would be “redesigned, restored and enlarged” after the director of the world’s most visited museum voiced alarm about dire conditions inside.

Standing in front of the Mona Lisa, Macron said the massive overhaul would include a “special space” for Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece and a brand-new museum entrance, as well as a ticket price hike for visitors from outside the European Union.

The president’s aides said the new project to turn around the Louvre was expected to cost between 700 and 800 million euros ($730 and 830m).

Under the new plans, the Mona Lisa, which attracts around 20,000 visitors a day, would be “independently accessible” from the rest of the museum, with a separate ticket to see it, Macron said.

The museum in central Paris would also have a “new grand entrance” on its eastern facade to help ease congestion at its current glass-and-metal pyramid entry point.

That entrance was designed for just four million visitors a year when it was inaugurated in 1988, but more than double that figure walked through it last year.

Macron said France would over the next few months launch an “international architecture competition” and select winners by the end of the year to transform the Louvre’s buildings by 2031.

‘Colossal’

The seat of French kings until Louis XIV abandoned it for Versailles in the late 1600s, the Louvre is regularly listed as the world’s most visited museum.

Beyond the Mona Lisa, it houses masterpieces like Greek marble sculpture, the Venus de Milo, and Eugene Delacroix’s painting, Liberty Leading the People.

But the Paris landmark has become a subject of national concern after the revelation last week of a confidential memo written by its director Laurence des Cars to Culture Minister Rachida Dati, warning about the “proliferation of damage in museum spaces”.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2025