SECURITY UNDER SCRUTINY
Ms des Cars, who has led the Louvre since 2021, will appear before the Senate’s culture committee on Wednesday afternoon to answer questions about the museum’s security protocols.
A report by France’s Court of Auditors, seen by AFP, highlighted a “persistent delay” in security upgrades between 2019 and 2024, noting that only a quarter of one wing was under video surveillance.
In a letter to Culture Minister Rachida Dati in January, Ms des Cars had warned of a “worrying level of obsolescence” at the museum and called for urgent renovations.
Responding to criticism, the Louvre said the display cases protecting the jewels were installed in 2019 and “represented a considerable improvement in terms of security.”
PATTERN OF MUSEUM THEFTS ACROSS FRANCE
The Louvre heist follows a spate of high-profile robberies at French museums. Last month, criminals stole gold nuggets worth more than US$1.5 million from Paris’s Natural History Museum. On Tuesday, authorities confirmed a 24-year-old Chinese woman was arrested in Barcelona while trying to sell nearly a kilogram of melted gold linked to that case.
Thieves also took two dishes and a vase valued at about US$7.6 million from a museum in Limoges.
“Museums are increasingly targeted for the valuable works they hold,” said France’s Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property.
Labour unions have blamed repeated budget and staffing cuts for leaving major cultural institutions vulnerable. “We cannot do without physical surveillance,” a union official said, noting that visitor numbers at the Louvre — home to masterpieces like the Mona Lisa — have soared even as security staffing has declined.
