The Louvre Museum in Paris was forced to close on Monday after hundreds of employees went on strike to protest “increasingly deteriorated working conditions.”

Around 400 of the museum’s 2,100 staffers participated in the strike, blocking the museum’s iconic pyramid entrance, according to the New York Times.

The three major unions representing Louvre workers—the CGT, CFDT, and Sud—announced the strike last week in a notice to France’s Ministry of Culture. The notice, shared with press, reads, “The theft of 19 October 2025 highlighted shortcomings in priorities that had long been reported.” The notice further said that museum workers “feel that they are now the last line of defense before collapse,” and that management had failed to create “sufficient awareness of the crisis we are facing.”

For the striking workers, the brazen robbery of $102 million in French crown jewels in October was clear evidence of deep rot and dysfunction in the museum’s operations.