Fears for Mona Lisa over tour plans

The Mona Lisa has not left the Louvre since 1974.

Tourists throng to the Louvre in Paris to see the Mona Lisa, but she may soon be taken on a "grand tour" of France to allow people in deprived areas to view her enigmatic smile.

Francoise Nyssen, the Culture Minister, is "seriously considering" sending the painting to Lens, a former mining town in the north where the Louvre has an outpost.

She dismissed art experts' warnings that Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century masterpiece is too fragile to be transported.

"We had the same reaction when we proposed to take the Bayeux Tapestry out of its museum," she said yesterday.

French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to lend Britain the 11th-century embroidery of the Norman conquest.

Lens mayor Sylvain Robert is leading a campaign for the Mona Lisa to be exhibited temporarily at the Louvre-Lens, which is overlooked by slag heaps beside red-brick terraced houses and a chip shop.

Supporters of the local football club held up a huge banner with a picture of the Mona Lisa at a match last month, with a slogan reading: "Mona Lisa, the hearts of the people of Lens are beating for you."

Many townspeople hope that struggling local businesses will benefit from visitors who come to see the work. Nyssen said: "Cultural offerings exist. Why would they be confined to certain places and not accessible everywhere for all to enjoy?"

She also said care would be taken to preserve the prize exhibit.

Didier Rykner, an art historian, said it would be "irresponsible and extremely dangerous" to subject it to further travel. "It is extremely fragile. The wood panel it is painted on is extremely thin and there is a crack, which if it widened would damage it irreversibly."

The painting has not been seen outside the Louvre since 1974, when it was displayed in Tokyo and a woman tried to spray it with red paint. Luckily, it was protected by its bulletproof enclosure.