LONDON — The president and director of the Louvre Museum in Paris has been summoned to seem earlier than French lawmakers amid the continued investigation into the brazen heist of priceless jewellery over the weekend.
Laurence des Vehicles has been summoned to seem earlier than France’s Senate Tradition Committee on Wednesday to a solution questions concerning the museum’s safety and what might have went fallacious on Sunday when 9 “priceless” items have been swiped from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery.
A nationwide manhunt for the thieves has been in excessive gear for the reason that theft on Sunday as French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that authorities would catch these answerable for the “assault on a heritage that we cherish as a result of it’s our historical past.”
The thieves went straight to 2 shows, breaking them and taking a “vital quantity of loot,” French Tradition Minister Rachida Dati advised ABC Information.
“They knew precisely the place they have been going,” Dati mentioned. “It seems like one thing very organized and really skilled.”
Among the many jewellery taken within the brazen daytime heist was a pearl and diamond tiara from the gathering of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense, based on the Louvre.
On whether or not she believes the jewels are gone for good, Dati mentioned she has “confidence within the investigators.”
“They’re the most effective crew ever for this investigation, so I’m fairly assured,” she mentioned. “Some leads have been discovered, so the vital factor isn’t losing time, particularly in this kind of case.”
Dati mentioned the proof collected up to now factors to “organized crime,” however added that investigators haven’t dominated out that the heist may have been an inside job.
A safety worker with a canine stands close to the glass Pyramid of the Louvre Museum because the museum stays closed the day after a spectacular jewel heist by thieves who broke into the landmark through the use of a crane and smashing an upstairs window, stealing priceless jewellery from an space that homes the French crown jewels earlier than escaping on motorbikes, in Paris, France, October 20, 2025.
Benoit Tessier/Reuters
Dati mentioned that as a part of the beefed-up safety for the Louvre, she is asking {that a} police station be positioned inside the museum, reasonably than having solely museum safety on website.
Requested by ABC Information whether or not she is assured that priceless artworks and artifacts on show on the Louvre, together with Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” are protected, Dati mentioned, “It is all being checked out.”
“What you could keep in mind about France is that our buildings are historic monuments,” Dati mentioned. “So, it’s extra advanced to safe them.”
A report set to be printed within the coming weeks by Cour des Comptes, the supreme auditing establishment in France, discovered a major delay within the “deployment of apparatus meant to make sure safety” of the works inside the Louvre from 2019 by 2024.
The report, a portion of which was obtained by ABC Information, discovered that some rooms on the Louvre usually are not utterly protected by a video surveillance system, together with the Sully Wing, which is barely 40% lined by safety cameras, and the Richelieu Wing, which is barely 25% lined by cameras. The stolen Napoleon jewels have been housed within the Gallery of Apollo, which isn’t positioned in both of these wings.
The report additionally discovered that whereas preliminary research have been performed lately about methods to bolster safety on the Louvre, “operational implementation seems uneven and usually very restricted.”
The Louvre remained closed on Tuesday amid the continued investigation and the museum is refunding tickets which have already been bought by guests.
ABC Information’ Aicha El Hammar Castano, Kevin Shalvey and Invoice Hutchinson contributed to this report.
