The world’s largest museum has a new boss.
French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Christophe Leribault as the new director of the Louvre Museum on Wednesday. The appointment comes a day after his predecessor Laurence des Cars, the museum’s first female director, resigned.
The former Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, Elaine Sciolino, wrote in her book “Adventures in the Louvre” that des Cars “brought impeccable credentials as director”. Yet the winds were not in des Cars' favour. She was accused of rushing the sweeping, €800 million “Nouvelle Renaissance” modernisation of the museum, one of French President Emmanuel Macron's pet projects.
But disaster struck when thieves took less than eight minutes to steal crown jewels valued at €88 million ($102 million) from the Louvre in October. The heist stunned visitors, exposed glaring vulnerabilities and left one of France's most symbolically charged collections in criminal hands.
In a succinct communiqué released Tuesday, Macron’s office announced that des Cars had offered her resignation, which the president accepted.
“She has too few friends and too many enemies,” Sciolino said in a social media post on Wednesday.
An experienced art historian takes the helm
Like his predecessor, the Louvre's new director is an experienced art historian and curator.
Leribault, 62, has been running another world-renowned French landmark, Versailles Palace, since 2024. The former palace for French royalty west of Paris was the venue for Olympic equestrian sports when Paris hosted the summer games. Leribault also once headed Paris’s Orsay Museum.
“He will be tasked with leading important projects that are crucial for the institution’s future," French government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said as she announced Leribault’s appointment.
Foremost among them will be leading the "Nouvelle Renaissance" renovation project that exposed des Cars to considerable backlash.
French presidents often like to leave a major cultural work as part of their legacy – Georges Pompidou with the eponymous Centre Pompidou, François Mitterrand with the national library or the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, for example.
The Louvre renovation is Macron’s project.
That is one reason some in France’s cultural world openly speculated des Cars did not leave in October, right after the heist, even after offering her resignation: Macron had so much riding on the Louvre plan that an immediate departure risked making his flagship cultural project look like it was collapsing.
Addressing decades of dysfunction
The project includes a new entrance near the Seine River to ease pressure on I.M. Pei’s pyramid, new underground spaces and a dedicated room for the “Mona Lisa” with timed access – all intended to improve crowd flow and reduce the daily crush of visitors that has become a symbol of the Louvre’s success, and its dysfunction.
The former royal palace has also suffered a broad array of other problems that have presented a picture of a treasured national institution crumbling in real time.
The Louvre’s problems highlight decades of under-investment: “overcrowding, leaks from all sorts of different pipes that don’t work throughout the whole place", Sciolino said in an interview with FRANCE 24 in December 2025.
"Security has been one of the main problems and one of the main faults of the Louvre,” she said.
Strikes over pay and working conditions have repeatedly shut the Louvre since mid-December while water leaks and a ticket-fraud probe that prosecutors say siphoned more than €10 million over a decade have also cast a shadow over one of Paris's top tourist attractions.
“The French state is trying to get it right, and this plan to create a whole new entry for the Louvre, with a special space for the Mona Lisa – that’s great. But it’s going to cost a billion dollars and it’s going to take at least six years, and the Louvre needs help now,” Sciolino said.
Leribault now faces the delicate task of maintaining the integrity of a national monument while creating a smoother and more accessible experience for visitors.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
