Louvre and Musée d'Orsay Shut Saturday as France Prepares for Protests

The Louvre in Paris will close on Saturday, October 24, 2026, because of planned protests in the French capital.

The museum said on its official website that the closure is exceptional and linked to demonstrations in Paris that day. It is not the only one. The Musée d'Orsay, the Impressionist museum on the Seine, will also be closed, along with the Musée de l'Orangerie in the Tuileries Gardens, the Picasso Museum in the Marais district, and the exhibition spaces at the Grand Palais, the glass-roofed hall built for the 1900 world fair. The Fondation Louis Vuitton, the private arts centre in the Bois de Boulogne, is also shutting its doors ahead of the planned protest.

France's Ministry of Culture has urged all national and public museums to close on Saturday. In its guidance, the ministry said every establishment must ensure "the safety of visitors, the protection of agents and the preservation of works," with "agents" meaning staff.

The closures reach beyond museums. Art Basel Paris, the contemporary art fair held at the Grand Palais, where galleries show and sell work to collectors, was cancelled over the weekend because of the protests, ArtNews reported.

Security will be heavy. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said helicopters would be deployed alongside some 70,000 police officers and gendarmes, the national police force that also works in rural areas and has a military structure. Marches are still expected in Paris and Marseille on Saturday.

President Emmanuel Macron announced that only protests organised by unions are authorised on Saturday. Several cities will also have partial curfews, which restrict movement at certain hours. Protests in Lyon, Nice and Montpellier have been banned for security reasons.

Mr Nuñez also said authorities had found numerous online calls from hard-left groups encouraging attacks and urging activists to target public buildings. Those calls are the government's account, and the ministry has not yet said who posted them.

For anyone with plans to visit Paris this weekend, the simplest step is to check each museum's website before setting out. Staff at these venues will be working to keep the art safe on a day their doors stay shut, and that is the part of the story that rarely makes headlines.