Battle Over The MONA LISA! BREAKING NEWS

It served as the background for Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 presidential victory speech. On Tuesday, he returned to the Louvre to attempt some damage control after a leaked memo raised alarms about the dire state of the world’s most-visited museum.

Macron announced that the Mona Lisa will “be installed in a special space, accessible independently of the rest of the museum,” which he said will be renovated and expanded in a major overhaul.

Speaking in the room where Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece is displayed, Macron said a new entrance to the museum would be built near the River Seine and underground rooms would also be created.

While he did not disclose the cost, it is estimated that it could run into hundreds of millions of euros.

One of the ways of financing the project could be to raise prices for visitors from outside the European Union, he said. “Another way of financing the project is to increase the number of visitors to 12 million a year,” he added.

Macron visited the museum days after Le Parisien newspapers reported on a confidential memo that the Louvre's director, Laurence des Cars, sent to Culture Minister Rachida Dati.

According to the newspaper, the director warned of “a proliferation of damage to the museum’s spaces, some of which are in a very poor condition.”