McDonald’s outrages French with plans for restaurant at the Louvre

McDonald’s has caused outrage across the Channel after revealing it is to open a restaurant at Paris cultural landmark the Louvre.

The fast food giant has announced plans to bring its ubiquitous golden arches to the world-famous museum and will launch a branch near its entrance next month.

The restaurant will open in the Carrousel du Louvre, its underground approach, and will mark the ‘American representative in a rich and varied food court’, according to a spokesman for the museum.

The opening of the outlet will be McDonald’s 1,142nd branch in France, a country generating revenues for the burger chain second only to America.

However, the move has caused outcry from critics.

“This is the last straw,” one of the Louvre’s art historians said, predicting “unpleasant odours”.

Didier Rykner of the Art Tribune, said: “Today McDonald's, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops.

“I’m not against eating in a museum, but McDonald's is hardly the height of gastronomy.”

The Louvre is the largest national museum of France, the most visited museum in the world, and a historic monument.

It is a central landmark of Paris, featuring nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century exhibited over an area of 60,600sq m.

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By Kerstin Kühn

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