Hundreds of Louvre Museum employees went on strike on Monday, prompting its temporary closure and aggravating a sense of crisis that began in October with the theft of crown jewels valued at some 100 million dollars.

Crowds of workers blocked the museum's pyramid entrance Monday morning, after about 400 of the museum's 2,100 employees called a one-day strike. The strikers said they were seeking higher wages, a larger staff, better allocation of resources and management that “truly listens to employees.”

This strike adds to a broader unrest that has plagued the Louvre since the October theft that exposed security, management and budget problems at one of the world's most prestigious museums. Government investigators have since found that the museum's current and former management failed to implement security recommendations that could have prevented the heist and misallocated resources by renovating exhibition spaces and acquiring new works of art, rather than paying for repairs.

Now, museum workers are citing some of these concerns to justify their decision to strike. In a letter warning of their intentions last week, union leaders said museum workers “feel they are currently the last line of defense before collapse.” The letter noted how “various internal warnings have been ignored” and accused museum management of not raising “sufficient awareness of the crisis we face.”

At a protest outside the museum on Monday, Vanessa Michaut-Valora, a union leader and museum watchdog, said that “the theft revealed all the dysfunction to the world.”

Museum management did not respond to a request for comment on the museum's allegations. strikers.

The investigators too revealed that security guards had been watching the wrong surveillance cameras at the time of the robbery, a finding that contradicted earlier explanations by museum director Laurence des Cars, and led to growing calls for her resignation. The museum also had to preventively close a gallery after officials detected deficiencies in its beams, weeks before a water leak damaged up to 400 documents in a museum library.

Yvan Navarro, another union leader who was in front of the museum, said that the causes of the strikers' anger went back years. “The wear and tear of employees, the wear and tear of buildings, the wear and tear of working conditions,” Navarro said, “are things that happen over the long term, and employees feel it and see it every day.”

Each day, an average of 30,000 visitors tour the Louvre's treasure-filled halls, where they can see some of the world's most famous works of art, such as Leonardo da Vinci's “Mona Lisa.” They were left outside on Monday, as striking workers carrying union flags and banners blocked the entrance.

“We are disappointed,” said Francesco Caporuscio, a Canadian tourist waiting in the cold outside the entrance with his wife Connie. "It's the first time we've come to Paris; I don't know when we'll be back," he said.

The strike marked the start of a portentous week for the Louvre, as its director, Des Cars, and her predecessor, Jean-Luc Martinez, will be questioned by senators on Tuesday and Wednesday about the museum's problems.

Des Cars, among other issues, is expected to answer questions about a controversial renovation plan, promoted by her and the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, called “Louvre – New Renaissance”. Under the plan, the museum will build a new entrance and a new hall to house the “Mona Lisa,” but auditors said it should only focus on solving major infrastructure problems.

The renovation plan has also drawn opposition from union leaders, who cited it as one of the reasons they went on strike.

Ségolène Le Stradic is a journalist and researcher covering France.