The Louvre, the world's most visited museum, was forced to close on Wednesday after workers staged a walkout in protest over pickpockets. More than 100 staff stopped work to denounce raids by organised gangs which they said were growing in number and becoming "more aggressive", targeting both visitors and staff in the vast galleries. 
 
 The museum said in a statement that pickpocketing was a growing problem despite measures taken last year, including tighter co-operation with the police and temporary bans on people already identified as pickpockets from re-entering the museum. Late last year, the Louvre filed an official complaint to the state prosecutor over visitors falling victim to the thieves. 
 
 A union official said staff were afraid of organised gangs, which had become increasingly aggressive and included minors who could access the museum for free. Some complained of being spat at, insulted, threatened or kicked, saying thieves had become more violent. 
 
 The Louvre, which had 10 million visitors last year, would normally draw 30,000 a day at this time of year to see works including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. 
 
 Disappointed tourists gathered outside the museum on Wednesday yesterday afternoon. "We've been cheated," Mariam Kamel, 16, a student from the International School in Bellevue, Washington, who had planned to see the museum on a school trip, told Associated Press. Her teacher, Rhonda Eastman, said she had given specific instructions to her students to avoid being pickpocketed while in Paris. 
 
 "On the metro they no longer speak English, they don't stand together, they're snobs," Eastman said. 
 
 The museum will reopen on Thursday. 
 
 Strikes have closed the Louvre in the past, including in 2009 when workers protested against government plans not to replace half of retiring public workers, including museum staff. In 2001, the museum was closed for a week by a strike over working hours. ||||| Please support our site by enabling javascript to view ads. 
 
 Uniformed police on Thursday patrolled Paris's Louvre museum as it reopened its doors following a walkout by staff in protest at gangs of violent pickpockets targeting visitors. 
 
 Around 20 police officers have now been drafted in to patrol the museum in response to staff concerns, Louvre officials told AFP. 
 
 The Louvre failed to open on Wednesday when around 200 employees refused to work saying the museum had become plagued by gangs of increasingly aggressive pickpockets, many of whom were children. 
 
 Herve Barbaret, the museum's administrator, told journalists he wanted to see the pickpocket networks dismantled. 
 
 "The presence of the police is having a major deterrent effect," he said, adding that he hoped it would be maintained until the problem was resolved. 
 
 One member of staff told AFP the pickpockets had in particular targeted Asian tourists. 
 
 A museum spokeswoman added that this was because gangs saw Chinese tourists as likely to be carrying large amounts of cash. 
 
 On Thursday Chinese visitors appeared to have taken heed of the warnings with many carrying their backpacks on their chest. 
 
 One employee, however, told AFP she was doubtful the extra security measures would be sufficient to deter the thieves and said staff would not hesitate to go on strike again. 
 
 "If the Louvre does not manage to resolve this problem it is going to create a serious image problem," she said. 
 
 Christelle Guyader of the SUD union said late Wednesday management had agreed to a series of measures aimed at reinforcing the police presence around the building. 
 
 Disappointed tourists earlier waited in vain in front of the museum, home to works of art such as the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, which receives some 10 million visitors a year. 
 
 Staff said they had been spat at, insulted and even hit by the pickpockets who would return to the museum again and again even after being ejected by police. 
 
 The Louvre has around 1,000 staff with some 470 present on any one day. 
 
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– Today, the Louvre is open, a fact that is remarkable only because yesterday the museum wasn't. Some 200 workers refused to do their jobs yesterday as a protest against pickpockets, who they say have aggressively been hitting both visitors and staff. The Guardian reports that they're not imagining things: The Paris institution admitted that pickpocketing is a growing woe, and steps taken last year to mitigate the problem, like a temporary ban on known perpetrators, haven't done the trick. A union official explains that staff actually felt threatened by what the Guardian calls "organized gangs," who make use of child-thieves who can enter the museum for free—and who have reportedly added insult to injury by spitting at and kicking the staff. The AFP reports the doors have reopened to the estimated 30,000 daily visitors, who will now have an extra dose of protection in the form of 20 police newly on patrol. Interesting side note: AFP notes that Chinese tourist were hot targets, as gangs perceived them to be laden with cash; many such visitors were today spotted wearing their backpacks on their chest as a safeguard.