LOUVRE REOPENS TOMORROW

The Louvre in Paris, the world’s most visited museum and home to the Mona Lisa, reopens on Monday but with coronavirus restrictions in place and parts of the complex closed to visitors. The Louvre has been closed since March 13, incurring losses of over 40 million euros.

PARIS: The Louvre in Paris, the world’s most visited museum and home to the Mona Lisa, reopens on Monday but with coronavirus restrictions in place and parts of the complex closed to visitors.

The Louvre has been closed since March 13 and this has already led “to losses of over 40 million euros”, its director JeanLuc Martinez said. About 70% of the museum’s public areas will be open to the public.

Among more than 10 million visitors in 2018, almost threequarters were tourists.

“We have lost 80%of our public. 75% of our visitors were foreigners,” Martinez said. “We will see 20% to 30% of our numbers recorded last summer - between 4,000 and 10,000 visitors - daily at the most,” he said.

Visitors will have to wear masks, there will be no snacks or cloakrooms available and the public will have to follow a guided path through the museum. Positions have been marked in front of the Mona Lisa to ensure social distancing.

France contributes 100 million euros ($112 million) to the Louvre’s annual budget and the museum must make up the rest, according to experts.

The Louvre has upped its virtual presence during the lockdown and said it was now the most followed museum in the world on Instagram with over four million followers.