PARIS—It’s not quite 1968, but labor disputes continue to keep the doors of some museums closed this week as workers protest the Sarkozy government’s plan to replace only one out of every two retiring workers in coming years. In a letter to French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand, 21 curators at the Pompidou Center (which remains shuttered) joined the fray, supporting the position of the striking workers.

      Employees at the Pompidou argue that the plan, which is designed to shrink the size (and budget) of the civil service, would devastate the contemporary art center, where 44 percent of the staff (around 200 hundred workers) will retire by 2020. The measure, which takes effect on Jan. 1, will eliminate 26 positions in 2010 alone, according to protesters.
A curator at the Pompidou told Le Monde that the way in which the plan was presented to the museum by Mitterrand’s financial adviser was particularly distasteful to the staff. Informing staff that the measure would apply to the Pompidou, the adviser reportedly stated, “[T]hat’s the decision of the state, the main shareholder,” according to the unnamed source, who added, that it was “as if we were a business!”

（来源：Artinfo，点击参看译文）

【编辑：张明湖】