It is in the room of the states that exhibits The Mona Lisaand in front of an airport ranging from Jack Lang to Anne Hidalgo, of course passing through Laurence des Cars, the host, that the President of the Republic has announced “A new renaissance of the Louvre”. He wishes to create a third entry to the east of the site in the Colonnade de Perrault in order to unclog the main access under the pyramid.
He also wishes, it was less expected, to build new rooms under the square courtyard in order to create a large space for temporary exhibitions and above all a specific room for The Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa would therefore leave the Italian painting sector in the Denon wing for the Sully pavilion, stronghold of Egyptological collections and French paintings. This room would be accessible directly from the new entrance. The objective is to avoid the current congestion caused by visitors who rush upon their arrival towards the States room and to offer better comfort to see The Mona Lisa.
The square courtyard of the Louvre.
Emmanuel Macron has long underlined the interest of this new entry which will give the opportunity to develop the vast somewhat inhospitable esplanade which runs along the rue de l’Amiral-de-Coligny and “To irrigate the whole neighborhood” Starting with the Samaritan. An international architectural competition will be launched to reach a decision at the end of 2025. The president wants the new spaces to be inaugurated by 2031 without closing the Louvre.

The Louvre colonnade, built between 1667 and 1670.
As expected, he indicated that this work would be funded on the museum’s equity in particular by differentiated pricing for non -European visitors. But in a contradictory way, the preliminary studies which amount to 10 million euros are paid this year on the budget of the Ministry of Culture. Even more surprising, he did not indicate any budget envelope. It was his entourage who has taken care of it, indicating that the total cost is around 700 million euros, decomposing between 400 million euros for the new entry and the new rooms and 300 million euros for renovation of the building. A sum representing half of what the Grand Louvre had cost in the 1980s.
The communication operation has been completed. The media around the world were alerted by a timely “flight” to the disturbing state of the building when in the end Emmanuel Macron commented very little the state of the site and rather wanted to register in the footsteps of François Mitterrand, announcing an enlargement of the Louvre which should make it possible to accommodate 12 million visitors against 8.7 today.

Rue de l’Amiral-de-Coligny and Place du Louvre: on the left the town hall of the 1st Arrdt and on the right the Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois church, opposite the Louvre colonnade.