The French government is under increasing pressure over museum security as police continued to search for thieves who took seven minutes to steal priceless jewels from the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum.
“What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of Paris, get people up it in several minutes to grab priceless jewels, and give France a terrible image,” the justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, told France Inter radio on Monday.
The interior minister, Laurent Nunez, ordered prefects across France to immediately reassess security measures protecting every museum and cultural site across the country, and enhance security if needed.
Security cameras were lacking in a third of the Louvre’s rooms, according to a state auditor report due to be published next month which criticised “considerable” and “persistent” delays in updating museum equipment.
The report, which was obtained by France Inter and covered the period of 2019 to 2024, pointed to a delay in the museum’s security upgrades, with, for example, just a fourth of one wing of the museum covered by video surveillance.
Alexandre Portier of the rightwing party Les Républicains, who heads the parliament’s cultural affairs committee, called for a parliamentary inquiry “so all lessons can be learned” and to spark “a general reflection about how we protect our heritage.”
As the manhunt continues, a team of 60 investigators is working on the theory that the raid was planned and carried out by an organised crime group. They have been studying CCTV footage and working on recovered items left by the intruders at the scene, including gloves, a walkie-talkie and a motorcycle helmet.
The gang of four thieves, who were unarmed but threatened guards with angle grinders, according to a prosecutor, accessed the Louvre via an outside window in broad daylight. It was Sunday morning and the museum had recently opened to visitors.
The robbers used a truck with an extendable ladder like those used by furniture movers in order to gain access to the Apollo gallery, the gilded room that houses the royal collection and crown jewels. They used their cutting equipment to get in and open the display cases, taking jewels from two cases in the ornate gallery that is one of the most-visited rooms in the museum.
Some were dressed in hi-vis jackets like builders. Officials said the heist was so quick that the thieves were only inside the Apollo gallery for four minutes – and the whole robbery was over in seven minutes.
The masked thieves stole eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense. Also stolen were an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife. Among the objects were a reliquary brooch and the diadem and large corsage-bow broach of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie – a prized 19th-century imperial ensemble.
One object, the emerald-set imperial crown of Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum after it was dropped by the robbers, French authorities said.
Darmanin said questions could be asked about why the museum’s windows were not secured. Speaking on CNews, the culture minister, Rachida Dati, said the thieves had attempted to set fire to the furniture hoist but had failed, leaving evidence behind as they fled.
“We did find motorcycles and they have a licence plate,” Dati said. “I also want to pay tribute to the security officers who prevented the furniture hoist from being set on fire. One of the criminals tried to set it on fire, but they forced him to flee. This allowed us to recover evidence at the scene.”
Dati said that the security procedures inside the museum had been carried out by staff. The alarms sounded when cases were opened and Louvre agents entered the room and carried out the museum’s protocol, but the intruders fled so fast the robbery was already over.
Dati stressed that a decade-long Louvre renovation project, which was launched earlier this year, includes security improvements. The €700m plan is intended to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the museum’s most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, a dedicated gallery by 2031.
Dati was asked by M6 television if she felt responsibility as culture minister for the fact that robbers had been able to target the Louvre. She pointed instead at her predecessors saying that there had been “40 years of abandon” on issues of security of works in the Louvre.
The far right called the theft “a humiliation” for France. “How far will the disintegration of the state go?” said the National Rally party leader, Jordan Bardella, on social media, calling the heist “an unbearable humiliation for our country”.
The president, Emmanuel Macron, said on social media that everything was being done to catch the perpetrators and recover the stolen treasures. Darmanin vowed the robbers would be caught.
The museum remained closed on Monday.
Trade unions said that, in general, not enough investment was being made into staffing and security at French cultural venues.
“The collections aren’t safe, the visitors aren’t safe and the staff aren’t either,” Yvan Navarroa co-secretary general of the culture branch of the leftwing CGT union told France Info. He said cuts over recent years meant there was a lack of security staffing for French culture and heritage.
