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Showing posts with label pickpockets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pickpockets. Show all posts

April 12, 2013

Friday, April 12, 2013 - ,, No comments

Louvre's one-day protest to procure help against threat of pickpockets follows strikes in 2009 and 1999 against reduction in staff

The Louvre reopened on Thursday after a one-day strike by museum security protesting the problem of pickpockets by children entering the museum for free.

Police will now join security staff in combatting the problem of relieving tourists of cash, according to museum officials.

In December 2009, employees of France's Culture of Ministry closed monuments such as Louvre, Museé d'Orsay, and Versailles Palace in a strike protesting the government's plan 'to replace only one out of every two retiring civil servants, which they say will cripple French museums'.

In 1999, French museums closed due to strikes. Marlise Simons for The New York Times reported on the situation then:
The main demand of the strikers, all employees of the Culture Ministry, is that they want the Government to hire more people and create at least 1,000 new jobs. They particularly want more security guards, whose numbers, the strikers contend, have not swelled to match the ever-growing stream of visitors. Strikers also demand that the Government end the system of hiring people on temporary contracts and instead offer permanent jobs.
On Friday, hundreds of frustrated tourists milled around near I. M. Pei's glass pyramid that gives access to the Louvre. Instead of a ticket to the museum, visitors got pamphlets from striking workers, explaining their grievances. They did not get much sympathy. A family from Sydney, Australia, said that seeing the Louvre's great collections from ancient Egypt and Greece would have been the highlight of their trip to Paris.

April 10, 2013

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - ,,, No comments

Louvre closed due to "exceptional circumstances"

Paris' Louvre at night (Photo by CR Sezgin)
The Louvre's website pops up a message today:
Due to exceptional circumstances, the Louvre museum is currently closed. We apologize for the inconvenience and will keep you informed when the museum opens again.
The New York Times' Arts Beat blog reported:

PARIS –The Louvre museum was shut on Wednesday after 200 guards and surveillance agents went on strike to protest the growing number of often violent pickpockets who prey on them and tourists. 
“For more than a year, pickpockets have come here every day,” Thierry Choquet, a member of the main union at the Louvre, said. “They threaten guards by telling them that they know where they live.” 
The pickpockets are often minors from Eastern and Central Europe, Mr. Choquet said, who “buy entry tickets, threaten agents and attack tourists.” 
On Wednesday the museum’s management said that it would beef up security forces at the Louvre, which usually attracts between 25,000 and 30,000 visitors a day at this time of year.
BBC News quoted sources as saying that the pickpockets included children.

The Guardian reported that earlier efforts had failed:
The museum said in a statement that pickpocketing was a growing problem despite measures taken last year, including tighter co-operation with the police and temporary bans on people already identified as pickpockets from re-entering the museum. Late last year, the Louvre filed an official complaint to the state prosecutor over visitors falling victim to the thieves.
The Telegraph reported how it's done:
Many of the thieves are children who get into the museum for free and then start asking people for money. 
“Do you speak English?” is their usual opening gambit, and then they surround victims, helping themselves to money and possessions.
And the difficulty in resolving the problem of the 'children of Romanian immigrants (France's Interior Minister)':
“The children are tough and very well organised,” said one member of [Louvre] staff. “They stop at nothing to get what they want, and work in gangs.
“We can only do so much, but arrests are usually impossible because of their young age. If they are kicked out, they return the next day. They are very aggressive towards staff, putting people in danger of attack.”

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