Robbers steal French crown jewels from Louvre

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PARIS: Thieves looted the Louvre on Sunday, taking some of France’s priceless crown jewels in a brazen, seven-minute rampage in broad daylight, officials and sources said.

Authorities damaged a 19th-century gem-encrusted crown near the museum, but the perpetrators were still at large and the subject of a riot.

The surprise robbery, one of several to hit French museums in recent months, forced the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum and home to the Mona Lisa, to close for the rest of the day.

Armed soldiers patrolled the entrance to the famous glass pyramid, while police teams were seen going inside. Evacuating visitors, tourists and passers-by were kept at a distance behind police tape.

It was “a Hollywood-like movie,” Talia Ocampo, an American tourist, told AFP.

It was “crazy” and “something we won’t forget – we couldn’t go to the Louvre because there was a robbery”, he said.

Sources and officials said the robbers used a powered, extendable ladder used to hoist furniture into buildings to get into the target gallery, which houses the crown jewels.

The crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, was broken near the museum, after the robbery, according to a source who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The crown, which features golden eagles, is encrusted with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, according to the museum’s website.

’30 seconds’

Interior Minister Laurent Neuss said three or four thieves had used a wave of furniture to steal “priceless” items from two displays in the museum’s “Gallery d’Apollo” (“Gallery of Apollo”).

It was not immediately clear what other items were taken.

It said three historic diamonds are usually among the pieces on display there.

After the incident, the thieves arrived between 9:30 and 9:40 am (0730 and 0740 GMT). The museum opens to the public at 9 am.

A separate police source said the robbers had pulled up on a scooter equipped with angle grinders and used a hoist to get inside the Louvre.

A witness named Sameer, who was riding a bicycle nearby at the time, told TF1 news outlet that he saw two men “riding the wave and breaking the window…it took 30 seconds”.

She said she saw four of them later, and called the police.

The brazen robbery took place just 800 meters from Paris police headquarters.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation and the value of the hoarding was still being assessed.

The Louvre said on X that it closed its doors for the day due to “extraordinary reasons”. The administration told AFP that it “wants to preserve the traces and clues of the investigation”.

Series of heists

The Loire was the seat of French kings until Louis XIV left it for Versailles in the late 1600s.

It is the world’s most visited museum, welcoming nine million people to its vast halls and galleries last year.

Louis XIV commissioned the “Galerie d’Apollon”, which later served as the model for the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. It was recovered months later and today sits behind security glass.

Several French museums have been targeted by thieves recently.

Last month, criminals used an angle grinder to break into the Natural History Museum in Paris, which contained gold artifacts worth 600,000 euros ($700,000).

Earlier this month, thieves stole two porcelain dishes and a vase containing national treasures from a museum in the central city of Limoges, estimated at 6.5 million euros.

In November last year, four thieves stole snuffboxes and other valuable artifacts from the Cogonque J Museum in Paris, smashing display cases with axes and baseball bats.

French President Emmanuel Macron promised in January that the Louvre would be “redesigned, restored and expanded” after its director expressed alarm about dire conditions inside.

He said that at this time he hoped that these works could help increase the annual number of visitors to 12 million.