“In the event of a theft like the one that occurred on Sunday at the Louvre, national museums are left with nothing but tears.” Romain Dechelette, president of a French insurance firm, told Le Parisien.
Jewelry stolen from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery, which contains France’s historic collection of crown jewels.Credit: Louvre Museum
Questions have arisen about the Louvre’s security – and whether security cameras might have failed – after thieves rode a basket crane up the museum’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels on Sunday morning.
“The Louvre Museum’s security apparatus did not fail, that is a fact,” Culture Minister Rachida Dati told the National Assembly. “The Louvre Museum’s security apparatus worked.”
Dati said she launched an administrative inquiry that comes in addition to a police investigation to ensure full transparency into what happened. She did not offer any details about how the thieves managed to carry out their heist given that the cameras were working.
But she described it as a painful blow for the nation.
The robbery was “a wound for all of us,” she said. “Why? Because the Louvre is far more than the world’s largest museum. It’s a showcase for our French culture and our shared patrimony.”
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said the museum’s alarm was triggered when the window of the Apollo Gallery was forced.
Police officers arrived on site two or three minutes after they were called by an individual that witnessed the scene, he said on LCI television.
Officials said the heist lasted less than eight minutes in total, including less than four minutes inside the Louvre.
Nuñez did not disclose details about video surveillance cameras that may have filmed the thieves around and in the museum pending a police investigation. “There are cameras all around the Louvre,” he said.
The theft focused on the gilded Apollo Gallery, where the Crown Diamonds are displayed. Alarms brought Louvre agents to the room, forcing the intruders to bolt, but the robbery was already over.
Eight objects were taken, according to officials: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; and diadem and a large corsage-bow brooch, a prized 19th-century imperial ensemble, of Empress Eugenie, Napoleon III’s wife.
AP
