Musée d’Orsay re-opens after week-long strike

Paris's newly refurbished Orsay Museum (Musée d’Orsay), known for its world-leading impressionist collection, was re-opened to the public on Thursday after a week-long strike had left thousands of prospective visitors disappointed.

By News Wires (text)

AFP - Paris' newly revamped Orsay Museum reopened to the public on Thursday as staff called off a week-long strike that had kept its masterworks off limits to thousands of would-be visitors.

Workers downed tolls last week to demand 20 more people to staff the larger, renovated venue, whose world-leading impressionist collection draws three million visitors each year.

They lifted their protest on Thursday after the French culture ministry promised unions to launch a recruitment drive at the museum straight away, instead of early next year as planned, museum officials said.

Twenty-five years after its creation in a century-old former railway station on the south bank of the Seine, Orsay has spruced up around half of its exhibition spaces at a cost of 20.1 million euros (27.6 million dollars).

Special attention has been paid to the impressionist gallery, and the museum of 19th-century art was braced for a rush of visitors keen to see works by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir or Edgar Degas in their new setting.

Four new storeys have also been built inside the museum's Amont pavilion, a vast former machine room, creating 2,000 square metres (21,500 square feet) of new hanging space.

The museum is online at www.musee-orsay.fr/en.