The Palace of Versailles has lost 45 million euros since the lockdown, according to its boss Catherine Pégard, who believes that the economic model needs to be rethought.

Visitor numbers at Versailles are “collapsing” without foreign tourists. Only 10,000 visitors per day are coming at the moment, or three times less than usual, Catherine Pégard, president of the public establishment of the Palace of Versailles, said on Wednesday, August 12.

“Per day, we are around 10,000 – more during the weekend, less during the weekdays – because our visitors are almost entirely French. Slowly we are seeing foreigners, Germans, Dutch, a few Italians coming,” said Catherine Pégard on RTL radio.

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Usually, the palace welcomes around 30,000 people a day during this period, 80% of which are foreigners, she said.

“Financially, we don’t make it at all,” she lamented, adding that the palace which reopened to the public on June 6 had “lost 45 million euros” since the lockdown.

“This gives us a lot to think about what we should be, what we should do, it’s our whole model which, if I dare say it, has collapsed,” she added.

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She recalled that “in the whole of history, the closure of the castle has only happened once, when the Second World War was declared”.

However, she insisted that “no cuts” would be made on staff. Both for the château’s 1,000 employees and for the 20,000 other people “working around”.

The Louvre Museum, the most visited in the world, saw its attendance divided by four in July, with 10,000 visitors per day. However, this trend remains as predicted by the Louvre’s management.