French museums strike

The stress of guarding the Mona Lisa has proved too great for staff at the Louvre. Attendants are on strike at the Paris museum this week in pursuit of better pay and working conditions.

“Some 8.3 million people are expected to visit the Louvre this year and about 7 million want to see the Mona Lisa,” said Annie-Marie Andrzejczak, a union official, who is part of the strike by a third of the 180 gardiens at the museum. . .

Attendants have stopped work at the palace of Versailles, the Musée d’Orsay and other establishments, but the misery is most intense for those assigned to watch Leonardo’s masterpiece, Michelangelo’s works and the Venus de Milo, a spokesman for Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques, the militant union that is running the partial strike, said.

The staff who stand by the Mona Lisa are suffering from orders to keep the crowd moving quickly and to prevent photographs, Ms Andrzejczak said. “We have to play the policeman all the time. It is exhausting and frustrating. The visitors are sometimes aggressive because they cannot have their photo and spend time enjoying the painting.”

I've never understood the need for tourists to take snapshots of famous paintings when their results are sure to end up underexposed, blurry, and marred by reflections -- and far inferior to your basic museum postcard, or even the digital images usually available for free online. But it's also a terrible state of affairs when those who want to spend some time actually looking must instead be limited to a quick glance as they are herded past. All in all, the guards have an unenviable job. From the Times of London.

Posted by David on February 13, 2007 9:05 PM