The Zahi Hawass Center for Archaeology and Heritage has voiced concern over the safety of Egyptian antiquities housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, urging French authorities to strengthen security around the collection as unrest continues to grip the French capital. The center, headed by prominent Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, called on the Louvre's administration and the relevant French authorities to put precautionary measures in place to shield Egyptian artifacts and collections from potential damage during the demonstrations.

The appeal followed the Louvre's closure to visitors on Monday, after students from the Ecole du Louvre barricaded the museum's entrances in solidarity with nationwide protests. There have been no reports of damage to the museum's Egyptian antiquities, but the interruption underscored the exposure of one of the world's largest such collections at a moment of exceptional public disorder.

France has endured weeks of student-led protests over poor school conditions, rising fuel prices, and the cost of living, which escalated into widespread rioting over the weekend of October 17 to 18, described as the country's worst in years, with thousands of businesses targeted and more than 2,000 arrests. Authorities imposed an overnight curfew in two central Paris districts, cancelled police leave, and deployed Sentinelle military forces and specialist units, while activists are calling supporters back into the streets on Saturday, October 24, for a new protest billed as Acte II.

The warning from the Hawass center adds an international cultural dimension to the crisis. The Louvre's Egyptian department, the largest of its kind outside Egypt, has long been the focus of Hawass's campaigns: he previously suspended the museum's excavation rights at Saqqara in 2009 over disputed fresco fragments, which France later agreed to return.