President Emmanuel Macron of France has given he green light to a €500,000 (£445,000) makeover of the Elysée Palace’s gilded Salle des Fêtes, its ballroom, turning it from red to "six shades of grey”.

The overhaul, the first in decades, comes after the Elysée Palace’s new shop has done a roaring trade since opening a week ago selling presidential mugs and other merchandising, with the benefits going towards the palatial renovations.

With its huge chandeliers, red and gold walls and carpet and 19th century painted ceilings, the Salle des Fêtes is used for up to 200 events a year, from major press conferences and state dinners to swearing in new French presidents.

The last time it received a makeover was in 1984, when then Socialist president François Mitterrand ordered the addition of ten French windows to the southern and eastern walls to allow in more natural light.

But the vast hall has since lost a good deal of its lustre. “We had to renovate,” an aide said, calling the hall “France’s number one showroom”. 

France’s state auditor estimates that, in all, the increasingly dilapidated Elysée Palace requires €100 million of renovation work over the next seven years.

Work will commence next month to turn the hall’s walls from “empire red” to “18th-century grey”, in fact six shades of grey spread across carpets, tapestries and 30 pairs of curtains.

Inaugurated in 1889 During Paris’ Universal Exhibition, the hall was already in decline in 1972 when then president Georges Pompidou was appalled to find leaks on the carpet and ordered works.  But nobody had ever dared change the hall’s original red colour.

“It’s a surgical operation that will have a huge effect. The project is sobre to add light to the whole thing. This is about highlighting elegance à la française,” interior designer Isabelle Stanislas told Le Parisien. 

The ceilings depicting the three allegories of art, science and the French Republic will be left untouched.

News of the impending works came a week after the Elysée Palace opened a pop-up store and online one selling presidential merchandise. 

Items such as mugs decorated with Mr Macron’s face and £250 bracelets inscribed with liberté, égalité, and fraternité sold about €350,000 worth of memorabilia in the first three days alone.