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The stress of guarding the Mona Lisa has proved too great for staff at the Louvre. Attendants are on strike at the Paris museum this week in pursuit of better pay and working conditions.

“Some 8.3 million people are expected to visit the Louvre this year and about 7 million want to see the Mona Lisa,” said Annie-Marie Andrzejczak, a union official, who is part of the strike by a third of the 180 gardiens at the museum.

“We are thinking of putting up a notice with the Mona Lisa and the words ‘Donate €150 [£100] to my attendants or I’m going back to Italy’,” Ms Andrzejczak added.

Attendants have stopped work at the palace of Versailles, the Musée d’Orsay and other establishments, but the misery is most intense for those assigned to watch Leonardo’s masterpiece, Michelangelo’s works and the Venus de Milo, a spokesman for Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques, the militant union that is running the partial strike, said.

The staff who stand by the Mona Lisa are suffering from orders to keep the crowd moving quickly and to prevent photographs, Ms Andrzejczak said. “We have to play the policeman all the time. It is exhausting and frustrating. The visitors are sometimes aggressive because they cannot have their photo and spend time enjoying the painting.”

The stoppage has forced the Louvre to closed several galleries, including the French 18th and 19th centuries and Flemish and Dutch 17th century. Other museums have kept their galleries open so far with nonstriking staff.

An attendant who is stationed in the gallery leading to the Mona Lisa’s room said that Sundays, the day of free entry, were the worst at the Louvre. “There are 65,000 visitors in the day. It’s unbearable and even dangerous,” he said.

Traffic through the Leonardo rooms rose sharply three years ago after the global success of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code and the subsequent film. The strikers want an extra €150 a month on top of their pay, which is up to €1,500. They say that the management has reduced staff levels citing improved technical security measures. The agents de surveillance, as they are officially termed, dislike being considered security guards. They want recognition of their knowledge of art and the time that they spend informing visitors of the treasures under their care.

The Louvre staff say that enforcing the various rules on photography adds to their suffering. In some galleries flash photography is prohibited, but not in others. “We spend all day explaining that it’s forbidden and at the end of the day we blow our cool sometimes,” the attendant said. The Louvre caused an incident two weeks ago when it refused a request by Le Figaro newspaper to allow photographs in the gallery of two Italian sisters said to be descended from the Mona Lisa.

“A guy once tried to smash the glass that protects the painting and he attacked the woman attendant who tried to stop him,” the guard said.

Art numbers

1793 Museum that became the Louvre was opened

8.6m Number of visitors in 2006

20% of foreign visitors are from America

Sources: BBC News, Louvre Website

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