A Paris McDonald's. Photo: Let Ideas Compete/flickr

Mona Lisa, meet Le Big Mac.

Lovers of French culture and art snobs are buzzing with disapproval after McDonald's confirmed its plans to open a restaurant within the Louvre in Paris, according to the Daily Telegraph.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary in France, McDonald's will open its 1,142nd French restaurant a few yards away from the iconic art museum in Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping center within the Louvre complex.

"I'm not against eating in a museum but McDonald's is hardly the height of gastronomy," Didier Rykner, head of the Art Tribune Web site told the Telegraph. "Today McDonald's, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops."

McDonald's confirmed it will open the restaurant in November, and the Louvre confirmed its location in the Carrousel. The shopping center's deal with the museum stipulates its "commercial activities will be regulated and restricted to cultural or tourist activities," and the Louvre has the right to protest any outlet that fails to meet that criteria.

And while some may think a McDonald's isn't up to muster, the museum gave the green light to a "quality" McCafé and a McDonald's "in line with the museum's image," the Daily Telegraph reported.

The McDonald's will be the American representative in a new global food court, the newspaper reported.

"The Louvre welcomes the fact that the entirety of visitors and customers, French or foreign, can enjoy such a rich and varied restaurant offer, whether in the museum area or gallery," the Louvre said in a statement.

"This is the last straw," an art historian working at the Louvre who wished to remain anonymous told the Daily Telegraph. "This is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odors in the context of a museum."

France is McDonald's largest market outside the U.S.

[Via The Daily Telegraph]