PARIS, France: Workers at the Louvre Museum voted this week to launch strikes to protest their working conditions, a ticket-price hike for non-European visitors, and security weaknesses highlighted by the brazen daylight theft of France's Crown Jewels in October.

In a letter announcing the strike action starting on December 15, addressed to France's culture minister and seen by The Associated Press, the CGT, CFDT, and Sud unions asserted that "visiting the Louvre has become a real obstacle course" for the millions of people who come to admire its vast collections of art and artifacts.

The museum is in "crisis," with insufficient resources and "increasingly deteriorated working conditions," said the unions' strike notice to Culture Minister Rachida Dati. "The theft of October 19, 2025, highlighted shortcomings in priorities that had long been reported," the unions alleged.

The gang of robbers slipped away with loot worth an estimated 88 million euros (US$102 million). The museum director subsequently acknowledged a "terrible failure" in security. The haul hasn't been recovered. It includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to two 19th-century queens—Marie-Amélie and Hortense—and Empress Eugénie's pearl-and-diamond tiara.

The upkeep of the museum's vast and historic buildings, formerly a palace for French royals, has also failed to keep pace with its success as one of France's leading attractions.

A water leak on November 26 damaged several hundred publications in the museum's library focused on Egyptian antiquities, the museum said. The leak was caused by a valve opening in an old water pipe system scheduled for replacement next year.

The Louvre also said last month that some staff offices and a public gallery were temporarily closed because the floor beams had weakened. The unions say outdated facilities and too few staff are hurting the visitor experience and forcing some displays to close. They are calling for more resources to improve the building and protect the museum, its collection, visitors, and workers.

"We are in a run-down museum which has shown its security weaknesses," Christian Galani, a CGT union official representing Louvre workers, said in an AP interview.

He said the strike-action vote by employees this week was unanimous and that the planned rolling strikes risked forcing the museum's closure.