France’s culture minister has told the National Assembly that the Louvre’s security cameras were working during Sunday’s infamous heist, raising further questions
Questions are mounting over how thieves pulled off a brazen heist at the Louvre on Sunday morning, making off with jewels worth a staggering £76million, according to the Paris prosecutor.
“The Louvre museum’s security apparatus did not fail, that is a fact,” French culture minister Rachida Dati has told the National Assembly. “The Louvre museum’s security apparatus worked.”
National outrage followed after thieves used a vehicle-mounted ladder to reach a window, smashed glass display cases and stole eight pieces of Napoleonic jewellery, collectively studded with thousands of diamonds and gemstones – all in under eight minutes.
READ MORE: Louvre robbery minute-by-minute as gang heist make off with gems in 420 secondsREAD MORE: OceanGate Titan sub camera reveals eerie final photo taken before five killed in Titanic dive
Dati said an administrative inquiry had been launched alongside the police investigation to ensure full transparency, but offered no explanation on how the thieves pulled off the heist despite working cameras.
The theft was “a wound for all of us”, Dati said. “Why? Because the Louvre is far more than the world’s largest museum. It’s a showcase for our French culture and our shared patrimony.”
Interior minister Laurent Nunez said on Monday that the museum’s alarm was triggered when the window of the Apollo Gallery was forced open. Police arrived two or three minutes after a witness called, he told LCI television. Nunez gave no details about the surveillance cameras that may have recorded the thieves, pending the ongoing police investigation.
Four masked thieves scaled a balcony near the Apollo Gallery using a truck equipped with a mechanical lift. Two of the group cut through glass panes with a battery-powered cutter, slipped inside and threatened the guards, who evacuated the building. The thieves smashed the glass display cases and stole royal treasures before fleeing the museum after just four minutes inside.
Officials said eight objects were stolen: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon I’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; and a diadem adorned with nearly 2,000 diamonds and a corsage-bow brooch belonging to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III.
It is unclear whether the museum, which was closed after the robbery and remained shut on Monday and Tuesday, will reopen on Wednesday.