Prestige, power, and the politics of Louvre leadership: 'They think they are kings of the world'

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As the Louvre stands beneath its timeless grandeur, the institution finds itself at a fragile crossroads. In a candid interview with Oliver Farry, French Art Historian and Editor-in-Chief of La Tribune de l’Art, Didier Rykner sounds the alarm, not just on mismanagement, but on a deeper malaise: a loss of direction and purpose cloaked in ambition. Beneath the rhetoric of grand projects bolstered by presidential backing, Mr. Rykner urges us to look more closely at the fissures, both literal and symbolic, running through the world’s most beloved museum. Are we witnessing France's most iconic cultural emblem increasingly adrift from its true "raison d'être", weighed down by neglect and a vision of grandeur increasingly detached from reality?