French Museum Strike Spreads

As I posted a few days back, there was a strong threat that museum workers in France would expand its strike from the Pompidou Center for Modern Art in Paris to other French national museums including the Louvre and Versailles. The strikes are occurring to fight a plan by the French government to reduce museum staff in order to curb expenses. Angela Charlton of Associated Press as published in the Washington Post now states the strike have in fact expanded. The Louvre is now closed as is Versailles due to a shortage of museum staff and support workers. The Versailles gardens remain open, but the chateau itself is now closed. According to the article, the Louvre was last closed in 2001 for eight days due to a work stoppage as well. The workers at the Francois Mitterrand National Library have also voted to strike, starting on Friday. The strike and desired cost cutting measures certainly sum up the problems and issues both large and small cultural institutions are having around the world in these difficult economic times.

Charlton states

It was unclear how many workers were on strike across France. Paris tourism offices were alerting visitors to the museum closures.

The culture minister said France could not make an exception for museum workers in a government-wide cost-cutting measure affecting all public servants, and that museums had many ways to reorganize to deal with shrinking staff numbers.

"The reform must be applied," he said on France-2 television Thursday. "If we start to make exceptions, we will never get out of this," he said, referring to the budget constraints that prompted the reform.

Frederic Sorbier of the CGT union, standing in front of the Louvre, said, "We are pressing on with the strike because we did not obtain what we wanted. Because when our managers and the ministers have to face demands, they deny responsibility saying 'I can't do anything, I have no leeway for maneuver, I must defer to the president, the president must defer to Europe, and Europe to globalization.' So there's no solution."

To read the Washington Post article, click HERE.