PARIS (AP) — The Louvre reopened Wednesday morning to crowds beneath its glass pyramid — at the same time as France reeled from one of many highest-profile museum thefts in residing reminiscence simply days earlier on the famed museum.
The Sunday morning smash-and-grab unfolded simply 250 meters (270 yards) from the Mona Lisa and has prompted a nationwide reckoning, with some officers evaluating the shock to the 2019 burning of Notre-Dame cathedral.
Lots of queued exterior as limitations got here down, a visual coda to a few days of forensic work, inspections and employees briefings. Tuesday’s closure was routine; the museum is often shut that day.
Nonetheless, the scene of the heist — the jewel-lined Apollo Room — stayed shuttered.
France acknowledges failings
Authorities say the gang spent lower than 4 minutes contained in the Louvre. Utilizing a freight raise wheeled to the Seine-facing façade, the thieves compelled a window, smashed two show circumstances and fled on motorbikes into central Paris.
Alarms drew Louvre brokers to the gallery, forcing the intruders to bolt — however the theft was already executed.
“We have failed,” Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin mentioned, noting criminals had been simply “able to place a freight lift on a public way” — a breach that tasks “a very negative image of France.”
Eight objects had been taken: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to Nineteenth-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second spouse; a reliquary brooch; Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem; and her giant corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of uncommon craftsmanship.
One piece — the emerald-set imperial crown of Empress Eugénie, with greater than 1,300 diamonds — was later discovered exterior the museum, broken however recoverable.
Fears the jewels can be destroyed
The haul is valued at about €88 million ($102 million) — a “spectacular” determine that fails to seize the works’ historic weight, in line with Prosecutor Laure Beccuau.
She warned the thieves can be unlikely to understand something near that determine in the event that they pry out the gems from their settings or soften the metals. Many curators concern precisely that: that an object’s centuries of that means might be pulverized into nameless gems for the black market.
The in-and-out took solely minutes; no arrests have been introduced and the jewels stay lacking.
The investigation is widening. Beccuau mentioned 4 folks have been recognized as being on the scene of the heist, with professional analyses underway and about 100 investigators mapping the crew and any accomplices.
The theft has sharpened scrutiny of the Louvre’s surveillance — and landed its president-director, Laurence des Automobiles, on Wednesday earlier than the Senate’s tradition committee — although high officers have refused to take away her.
Questions over Louvre’s overhaul
All this comes in the midst of a safety overhaul on the Louvre introduced in January by President Emmanuel Macron’s authorities — a brand new command put up and expanded digicam grid the tradition ministry says is being rolled out.
It raises arduous questions, together with whether or not Sunday’s breach is tied to staffing ranges, and the way uniformly the upgrades within the overhaul are being utilized.
Safety for headline works is hermetic — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled case — but the break-in uncovered seams elsewhere in a 33,000-object labyrinth. For a lot of French, the distinction is a public embarrassment on the landmark.
There’s additionally one other uncooked nerve: swelling crowds and overstretched employees.
A June employees walkout delayed opening over overcrowding and continual understaffing. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates strain factors the place development zones, freight entry and customer flows intersect.
On Wednesday, the Louvre’s different star sights — from the Venus de Milo to the Winged Victory of Samothrace — had been open once more.
However the cordoned-off vitrines within the Apollo Room, guarded and empty, instructed a unique story — one among a breach measured not simply in minutes and euros, however within the fragility of a nation’s patrimony.
