PARIS - A strike by French museum workers widened today with the Louvre and Versailles Palace joining a host of other tourist attractions to shut down as employees protested against planned job cuts.

“Our meeting with the culture ministry last night produced nothing, so the strike has extended,” Kamal Hesni, a delegate from the CFDT union, said in a telephone interview.

Unions say the government’s plan to replace only one out of every two retiring civil servants will cripple museums, as will its plan to cut some subsidies. The non-replacement plan, designed to shrink the state payroll and cut the budget deficit, was a campaign pledge of President Nicolas Sarkozy in his 2007 election.

After first being applied to government ministries, it is now being extended to organizations owned by the state, such as museums.

The modern art Pompidou Center has been on strike for nine days, and yesterday was joined by the Musee d’Orsay with its 19th- century Impressionist art, the Sainte-Chapelle with medieval stained-glass windows, and the Arc de Triomphe monument.

To read full Bloomberg story — Go Here Now.