Paris (AFP)
Uncertainty continued to reign over the reopening of the Louvre, closed since Sunday in the face of fears by personnel, who consider themselves threatened by the coronavirus epidemic and who exercised their right of withdrawal on Monday for the second consecutive day.
"Today the situation and the current conditions are not compatible with a right of withdrawal," said in the evening the Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon during his daily press briefing.
"Despite the emerging nature of this new virus, the state and the health services are fully mobilized to face this evolving situation," he insisted.
Employees of the largest museum in the world voted unanimously Monday morning in a general meeting to exercise this right, which allows an employee to stop work because of danger "serious and imminent for his life or his health", resulting de facto the closure of the museum due to lack of staff.
An exceptional CHSCT (Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee) was held on Monday. Staff representatives were received by management to explain the measures to be applied in stage 2 of the epidemic.
The reopening or not of the museum does not arise for Tuesday, which is a day of weekly closing.
"The museum is fully mobilized. The general management follows developments in real time. The Louvre takes all the security measures necessary for the security of agents and visitors," assured Maxence Langlois-Berthelot, general administrator of the Louvre museum. .
"We want to continue negotiations with the Louvre agents and we will continue to strictly apply the directives of the line ministries and the prefecture," assured the Louvre management to AFP at the end of the afternoon.
The meeting held on Monday was internal to the Louvre and did not group the other cultural establishments in the ministry, contrary to what had been announced at first.
France announced on Saturday the cancellation of all closed gatherings of more than 5,000 people.
© 2020 AFP