PARIS >> Tourists at the Louvre are being turned away as museum workers scramble to protect the world-famous institution’s priceless pieces of art from the rising waters of the Seine River.

The operation to remove artwork from the Paris museum’s lower stories has attracted worldwide interest amid flooding which sent the Seine’s waters rising to their highest levels in roughly 35 years.

Louvre staffers are due to address journalists about the operation later Friday. Other museums and cultural institutions have also been closed across France, including the renowned castles of Chambord and Azay-le-Rideau.

German officials earlier said they recovered the body of a sixth person who died in this week’s flooding in Bavaria near the Austrian border.

Authorities said the 65-year-old man’s body was found overnight in the town of Simbach am Inn, which was indundated on Wednesday. Now that flood waters have receded in the area, the search continues for other missing people. Llocal police told the dpa news agency Friday that they were still trying to locate an elderly couple in Simbach.

In all, that brings the total of people killed in flooding over the last week in Germany to 10 — including four in Baden-Wuerttemberg, to Bavaria’s west, in flooding that hit Sunday and Monday.