Staff from the Louvre have blocked the entrance to the esteemed art museum as a show of solidarity with the pension protests sweeping France.
On Monday, the museum tweeted that "due to an interprofessional social movement," it would "not able to be open at the moment."
According to the Associated Press, "demonstrators toted banners and flags" demanding the "repeal of the new pension law that raises the retirement age from 62 to 64."
The protest at the Louvre comes in anticipation of a nationwide protest planned for Tuesday, as French President Emmanuel Macron is set to hold a meeting with the country's Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, to discuss the government's actions going forward. "The Louvre is always closed on Tuesdays, so staff protested a day earlier," AP noted.
Despite the protests preventing tourists from entering the gallery, some remained stoic, while others held no qualms about voicing their outrage.
For the 29-year-old doctoral student from California, Britney Tate, she says, "If you firmly believe that this will bring some change, there's plenty of other things that we can see in Paris."
While Tate remained optimistic, others were less enthused. For Karma Carden, a tourist from Fort Myers, Florida, she said, "We're going to respect their strike tomorrow, but to do this today, it's just heartbreaking. We knew that Versailles would not be open because of the protest, but we knew the Louvre was open."
"I understand," she adds, "why they're upset, but [it's bad] to do this to people from around the world who've traveled from around the world for this and paid thousands of dollars."