New Delhi, Dec. 19 -- The ongoing strike at the Louvre is no longer just a labor dispute. It has become a test of how securely, credibly and competently the world's most visited museum is being run.

Behind the walkout are not only frayed labor relations, but a building itself under strain, with crumbling parts of the aging former palace now deemed unsafe.

At the heart of the crisis lies a deeper rupture: a $102 million jewel heist that exposed security failures at the core of the institution and transformed long-simmering staff grievances into a national reckoning.

The walkout is hardening

Tensions were already rising when a wildcat June strike abruptly shut the museum, stranding visitors beneath I.M. Pei's glass pyramid. Weeks later,...