Louvre heist raises questions about museum security

Thieves stole “priceless” pieces of France’s crown jewels from the Louvre in a daring daylight robbery on Sunday.

So what? The spectacular raid has reignited a longstanding row about security, or the lack thereof, at French museums after a spate of thefts over the past few weeks. It has also

• led to a frantic police inquiry to catch the burglars and find the jewels before they are broken up and sold;
• triggered a government order to examine security at all museums in France; and
• put pressure on an already beleaguered government over why warnings were ignored.

The scene. Around 9.30am on Sunday two men posing as construction workers in high viz jackets placed cones around a flat bed truck with an extendable ladder adjacent to the south side of the Louvre flanking the River Seine, currently undergoing renovation work.

Close at hand. It is 800 metres from the city’s police headquarters. Nobody had time to wonder who would be working in France on a Sunday morning or why they were wearing balaclavas. Two similarly masked men parked nearby on Yamaha scooters.

Modus operandi. The two “workers” took the ladder to a second floor balcony, cut through the window of the Apollon Gallery with angle grinders and jemmied open glass display cabinets containing the crown jewels in full view of staff and visitors. They snatched nine pieces and fled the way they entered. Before escaping, they unsuccessfully tried to set fire to the truck.

The haul amounted to nine pieces of jewellery, including a pearl and diamond tiara, an emerald and diamond necklace and earrings, a sapphire necklace and accessories, an 11cm corsage bow owned by Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoléon III, and a jewel-encrusted crown that also belonged to Eugénie.

Oops. The thieves dropped the crown, their pièce de résistance, decorated with eight gold eagles, 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, as they fled.

By the numbers:

• 7 minutes – how quickly the thieves were in and out of the building.
• 60 – how many police are involved in the manhunt.
• $6.7 million – how much the Louvre paid to acquire the corsage bow in 2008. The total estimated worth of the jewels is unknown, but has been described as priceless.

Not the first time. In 1911, Italian decorator Vincenzo Peruggia dressed as a Louvre worker, hid in a museum cupboard overnight and walked out the next morning with the Mona Lisa under his coat. He was later arrested and the painting was recovered in Florence.

There’s more. In 1976, King Charles X’s sword was taken from the Apollon Gallery never to be seen again. In 1998, Le Chemin de Sèvres by French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was stolen from the Louvre again in broad daylight. It has never been found.

Elsewhere. In September thieves stole €600,000 of gold samples from the Natural History Museum in Paris. That month burglars also removed two porcelain Chinese dishes and a vase valued at €9.5 million and described as “national treasures” from a museum in Limoges.

Too little. French state auditors were due to publish a report next month criticising “considerable” delays in updating equipment at the Louvre and warning that security cameras were missing in many rooms.

Too late. Newly appointed interior minister Laurent Nuñez has ordered a national review of security measures in museums and other cultural establishments to tighten them “where necessary”. The Louvre’s director Laurence des Cars recently announced a €1 billion plan for a complete renovation of the museum. But funding has not yet been secured.

Political fallout. Opponents of Emmanuel Macron and his new government, the eighth in eight years, were quick to make political capital of the heist. Far-right leader Jordan Bardella described it as an “unbearable humiliation” for France. Yvan Navarro from the powerful CGT union blamed a lack of security staff and accused the government of cost cutting.

Last word… Macron has promised to find the jewels and bring the culprits to justice.

Photograph by Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto via Getty Images