His mother, Hugette (de Kermabon) took Michele and his sister to occupied Paris in 1941.
He attended the lycée Henri-IV, then studied at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre,[3] and while still a student, began working at the museum as an intern in 1951.
In 1952, he was appointed to lead a team to catalog works of art recovered or repatriated from looting during the war.
In 1965 he was appointed by Culture Minister André Malraux as the chief curator of the paintings department of the Louvre, succeeding Germain Bazin.
Laclotte was also instrumental in the creation of France's Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art from 1995 to 2002,[6] and led one of the new institute's main research projects, a catalogue of Italian paintings in French public collections, following its establishment in 2001.