PARIS (AP) — Workers at the Louvre in Paris will on Monday vote to go on strike or continue talks with the government after months of mounting pressure on the world’s most visited museum, which unions have described as being “in crisis.”
Hundreds of employees will gather behind closed doors in a 500-seat auditorium inside the Paris landmark where unions will present the outcome of recent talks with Culture Minister Rachida Dati before voting by a show of hands.
The outcome could again bring the vast institution to a standstill.
The crunch vote comes as the museum struggles with the aftermath of a daylight jewel heist and an earlier staff strike that abruptly shut the Louvre and stranded thousands of visitors beneath I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid. Last month, the Louvre also announced the temporary closure of some employees’ offices and one public gallery because of weakened floor beams.
During the robbery on October, thieves used a basket lift to reach the Louvre’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with pieces of the French crown jewels. A Senate inquiry released last week said the thieves escaped with barely 30 seconds to spare, citing broken cameras, outdated equipment, understaffed control rooms and poor coordination that initially sent police to the wrong location.
For employees, the high-profile incident crystallized long-standing concerns that crowding and thin staffing were undermining security and working conditions at a museum that welcomes millions of visitors each year.
Those tensions spilled into public view in June, when striking workers brought the museum to a halt. Visitors with timed tickets waited in long, unmoving lines outside as the doors failed to open — an image that rippled across social media and underscored how fragile operations at the sprawling institution had become.
Unions say talks with the government have made progress but remain incomplete.
Separately, the Culture Ministry said Sunday it has tasked Philippe Jost, who oversaw the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris, with a mission to propose a deep reorganization of the Louvre following the findings of an administrative inquiry.
Three rounds of discussions last week produced “quite important progress” on promises of additional full-time hires and increased state funding, Alexis Fritche, general secretary of the culture wing of the CFDT union, told The Associated Press. But the proposals must be confirmed in writing and do not yet meet all demands, he said.
“It’s not completely satisfying,” Fritche said. Employees are “quite determined,” he added, while noting their strong attachment to keeping the world’s most visited museum open to the public.
In their strike notice to Dati last week, the CFDT, CGT and Sud unions said the Louvre was in “crisis,” with insufficient resources and “increasingly deteriorated working conditions.”
If workers vote to strike, the action could last just one day — the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays — though the strike notice is open-ended.
The result of the closed meeting is expected to emerge later on Monday morning. Lawmakers are due at the museum shortly afterward, as France watches to see whether its most famous cultural institution can stay open under growing strain.
John Leicester in Paris contributed
FILE - A carpet at Le Louvre museum, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
FILE- People walk by an entrance of the Louvre museum, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva, file)
HONG KONG (AP) — Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media mogul and outspoken critic of Beijing, was convicted in a landmark national security trial in the city’s court on Monday, which could send him to prison for the rest of his life.
Three government-vetted judges found Lai, 78, guilty of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Lai, 78, was arrested in August 2020 under a Beijing-imposed national security law that was implemented following massive anti-government protests in 2019. During his five years in custody, much of it in solitary confinement, Lai has been convicted of several lesser offenses and appears to have grown more frail and thinner.
Lai’s trial, conducted without a jury, has been closely monitored by the U.S., Britain, the European Union and political observers as a barometer of media freedom and judicial independence in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Reading from an 855-page verdict, Judge Esther Toh said that Lai had extended a “constant invitation” to the U.S. to help bring down the Chinese government with the excuse of helping Hong Kongers.
Lai’s lawyers admitted during the trial that he had called for sanctions before the law took effect, but insisted he dropped these calls to comply with the law.
But the judges ruled that Lai had never wavered in his intention to destabilize the ruling Chinese Communist Party, “continuing though in a less explicit way."
Toh said the court was satisfied that Lai was the mastermind of the conspiracies and that Lai's evidence was at times contradictory and unreliable. The judges ruled that the only reasonable inference from the evidence was that Lai’s only intent, both before and after the security law, was to seek the downfall of the ruling Communist Party even at the sacrifice of the people of China and Hong Kong.
“This was the ultimate aim of the conspiracies and secessionist publications,” they wrote.
Among the attendees were Lai’s wife and son, and Hong Kong’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen. Lai pressed his lips and nodded to his family before being escorted out of the courtroom by guards.
His verdict is also a test for Beijing’s diplomatic ties. U.S. President Donald Trump said he has raised the case with China, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government has made it a priority to secure the release of Lai, who is a British citizen.
The founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily will be sentenced on a later day.
Under the security law, the collusion charge could result in a sentence ranging from three years in jail to life imprisonment, depending on the offense's nature and his role in it. Hearings were set to begin Jan. 12 for Lai and other defendants in the case to argue for a shorter sentence.
The Apple Daily, a vocal critic of the Hong Kong government and Beijing, was forced to shut in 2021 after police raided its newsroom and arrested its senior journalists, with authorities freezing its assets.
During Lai’s 156-day trial, prosecutors accused him of conspiring with senior executives of Apple Daily and others to request foreign forces to impose sanctions or blockades and engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.
The prosecution also accused Lai of making such requests, highlighting his meetings with former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in July 2019 at the height of the protests.
It also presented 161 publications, including Apple Daily articles, to the court as evidence, as well as social media posts and text messages.
Lai testified for 52 days in his own defense, arguing that he had not called for foreign sanctions after the sweeping security law was imposed in June 2020.
His legal team also argued for freedom of expression.
As the trial progressed, Lai’s health appeared to be deteriorating.
Lai’s lawyers in August told the court that he suffered from heart palpitations. After the verdict, lawyer, Robert Pang, said his client is doing okay as the legal team studies the verdict.
Before the verdict, his daughter Claire told The Associated Press that her father has become weaker and lost some of his nails and teeth. She also said he suffered from infections for months, along with constant back pain, diabetes, heart issues and high blood pressure.
“His spirit is strong but his body is failing,” she said.
Hong Kong’s government said no abnormalities were found during a medical examination that followed Lai's complaint of heart problems. It added this month that the medical services provided to him were adequate.
Steve Li, chief superintendent of Hong Kong police’s National Security Department, welcomed the guilty verdict and disputed claims of Lai's worsening health.
“Lai’s conviction is justice served,” he told reporters.
Before sunrise, dozens of residents queued outside the court building to secure a courtroom seat.
Former Apple Daily employee Tammy Cheung arrived at 5 a.m., saying she wanted to know about Lai's condition after reports of his health.
She said she felt the process was being rushed since the verdict date was announced only last Friday, but added, “I’m relieved that this case can at least conclude soon.”
Rights groups, including global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, criticized the verdict.
“It is not an individual who has been on trial — it is press freedom itself, and with this verdict that has been shattered,” said Reporters Without Borders' director general Thibaut Bruttin.
Originally scheduled to start in December 2022, Lai’s trial was postponed to 2023 as authorities blocked a British lawyer from representing him, citing national security risks.
In 2022, Lai was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison over separate fraud charges involving lease violations, in addition to other cases related to the 2019 protests.
Associated Press writer Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
People wait to enter the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts ahead of the verdict for Hong Kong activist publisher Jimmy Lai's national security trial, in Hong Kong, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait to enter the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts ahead of the verdict for Hong Kong activist publisher Jimmy Lai's national security trial, in Hong Kong, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait to enter the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts ahead of the verdict for Hong Kong activist publisher Jimmy Lai's national security trial, in Hong Kong, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait to enter the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts ahead of the verdict for Hong Kong activist publisher Jimmy Lai's national security trial, in Hong Kong, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
