French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major overhaul of the Louvre museum in Paris on Tuesday.
The renovated museum would include a “grand new entrance” near the River Seine and a dedicated room for the Mona Lisa, Macron said.
Meanwhile, visitors form outside of the European Union would pay a higher entry free.
The Louvre’s latest big renovation in the 1980s was designed to receive 4 million annual visitors. But last year, the museum received 8.7 million visitors.
Mona Lisa to get dedicated space
Standing in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, Macron said the Mona Lisa would be moved to a new room inside the museum.
The space will be “independently accessible compared to the rest of the museum” and have “its own access pass,” Macron said.
The painting is currently shown behind protective glass in the museum’s largest room. The long queues of tourists eager to see the Mona Lisa mean that other paintings in the room often go unnoticed.
Last week, the Louvre’s president Laurence des Cars last week warned that the centuries-old building was suffered water leaks, temperature swings and failing infrastructure, all of which posed threats to the museum’s collection.
zc/wmr (AFP, AP, Reuters)
