On Saturday, Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak said the Louvre and Versailles would go ahead with lights out after the Eiffel Tower in a “symbolic” way to raise awareness of the energy crisis measure.

“Starting this (Saturday) night”, the Louvre Pyramid will go out at 11:00 pm instead of 1:00 am, the French minister announced on the 2nd, after the city of Paris took similar measures to let the Eiffel Tower go out earlier this week and City Hall plunged into darkness.

“We’re also closing the Versailles façade next week at 10pm instead of 11pm,” she added.

“Symbols are important to raise awareness,” she said, adding that “these symbolic measures” are not enough.

She called for more concrete measures for the ecological transformation of museums, cinemas, theatres and “all French cultural sites”.

For example, the Musée d’Orsay “has reduced its energy consumption by a third just by changing the bulbs and switching to LEDs. We try to do that in all the museums. Replacing the boilers, replacing them with heat pumps, etc…” argues the minister road.

For cinemas, “we are discussing replacing their projectors”.

“If they switched to laser projectors, they could reduce their energy consumption by a factor of seven,” said Ms Abdul-Malak.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced measures this week, such as reducing decorative lighting or the temperature of buildings and swimming pools, which should reduce the capital’s energy consumption by 10 percent, “a target required at the national level”.

Energy prices have skyrocketed in recent months against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and in many countries individuals, companies or public institutions are looking to reduce consumption.