Louvre director acknowledges "terrible failure" after jewel heist

The Louvre’s director on Wednesday, October 22, spoke publicly for the first time after the jewel heist. She said the museum "terribly failed" to spot the thieves early enough to stop the robbery. She later acknowledged that she offered to resign but it was refused.

The world’s most-visited museum reopened earlier in the day to long lines beneath its landmark glass pyramid for the first time since one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

In testimony to the French Senate, Louvre director Laurence des Cars said that the museum had a shortage of security cameras outside the monument and other ″weaknesses″ exposed by Sunday’s theft.

Under heavy pressure over a heist that stained France’s global image, she testified to a Senate committee that she submitted her resignation, but that the culture minister refused to accept it.

“Today we are experiencing a terrible failure at the Louvre, which I take my share of responsibility in,” she said.

The thieves slipped in and out, making off with eight pieces from France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

The theft — steps away from the “Mona Lisa” and valued at more than $100 million — has put embattled President Emmanuel Macron, Culture Minister Rachida Dati, des Cars and others under new scrutiny. It comes just months after employees went on strike, warning of chronic understaffing and not enough resources for protection, with too few eyes on too many rooms.

“We did not detect the arrival of the thieves soon enough,” des Cars said.

She said that the museum’s alarms had worked properly, but that it currently doesn’t have full video surveillance of the perimeter outside the museum, though there is a plan to provide full coverage of all the Louvre’s facades.

She also suggested barriers to prevent vehicles from parking directly alongside the museum’s buildings, and said that she would push for a police station inside the museum, which welcomes 30,000 visitors a day and 2,300 workers.

Three days on, the jewels remain missing and the thieves are still at large — and reactions are divided.

“For a place like the Louvre, it’s unfathomable,” said Amanda Lee, 36, an art teacher from Chicago. “I heard it took under four minutes. How is that possible here, with no police in sight?”

Claire Martin, a 41-year-old French lawyer from Versailles visiting with her two children during a school holiday, said that “we saw the masterpieces” even though the Apollo Gallery was shut.

“We told the kids it’s a history lesson. We came for the art,” she said. “The police can deal with the thieves.”

Authorities say the thieves spent less than four minutes inside the Louvre on Sunday morning: a freight lift was wheeled to the Seine-facing facade, a window was forced open and two vitrines were smashed.

Then came the getaway on motorbikes through central Paris. Alarms had gone off, drawing agents to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt.

As it reopened, the Louvre declined questions from The Associated Press to detail any reinforced protocols. It said that no uniformed police were posted in the corridors. With school holidays swelling demand, the day was fully booked and access limited.

“I didn’t notice extra security — guards as always, and no police inside. It felt like a normal day,” said Tomás Álvarez, 29, a software engineer from Madrid.

The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

They also made off with an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown, with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau valued the haul at about 88 million euros ($102 million), a “spectacular” figure that still fails to capture the works’ historical weight. She warned that the thieves would be unlikely to realize anything close to that sum if they pry out stones or melt the metals — a fate curators fear would pulverize centuries of meaning into anonymous gems for the black market.

Beccuau said that expert analyses are underway; four people have been identified as being present at the scene, and roughly 100 investigators are mapping the crew and any accomplices, in addition to forensics experts.

All this comes after Macron announced new measures in January for the Louvre — complete with a new command post and expanded camera grid that the Culture Ministry says is being rolled out.

It also raises hard questions, including whether Sunday’s breach is tied to staffing levels, and how uniformly the upgrades in the overhaul are being applied.

Protection for headline works is airtight — the “Mona Lisa” is behind bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled case — yet the break-in exposed seams elsewhere in a 33,000-object labyrinth. For many French, the contrast is a public embarrassment at the landmark.

It touches a raw nerve: the issue of swelling crowds and overstretched staff.

In June, a staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing delayed opening. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves security lacking and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight access and visitor flows intersect.

On Wednesday, the Louvre’s other star attractions — from the Venus de Milo to the Winged Victory of Samothrace — were open again. But the cordoned-off vitrines in the Apollo Gallery, guarded and empty, told a different story: one of a breach measured not just in minutes and euros, but in the fragility of a nation’s patrimony