System failures led to the October break-in at Paris’s Louvre museum, French opposition lawmaker Alexandre Portier, who is leading one of the investigations and has attended about 70 hearings, said Thursday. Presenting his preliminary findings, he openly questioned why the director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, remained in her post after the event. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
In tax:
- There was a burglary and theft of jewelry at the Louvre
- The opposition claims that the museum failed in security
- The director of the museum offered to resign after the incident
On October 19, 2025, four thieves disguised as construction workers stole nine historic jewels belonging to French royal families from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery within minutes. Their value is estimated at 88 million euros. The most valuable of them, the crown of the French empress Eugénie, fell to them during their escape and they left it in place.
Criticism of the museum management
“The theft at the Louvre is not an accident. It exposes the museum’s systemic failures,” Portier told a news conference, saying the museum ignored existing risks. At the same time, he criticized the leadership of the Louvre, which, according to him, is currently also failing. He pointed out that “in many countries and institutions” a similar situation would lead to the resignation of senior officials.
The director of the Laurence des Cars museum offered her resignation shortly after the incident, but French President Emmanuel Macron refused to accept it. He himself appointed her to this post in 2021.
The hack exposed wider problems
“It is astonishing that the Louvre has become a state within a state,” Portier continued, calling on the Ministry of Culture to be more directly involved in the management of the Paris museum.
The investigation, which he leads together with MP Alexis Corbier, is one of several. The Ministry of Culture also ordered an internal audit, while senators are also conducting hearings. Opposition MPs want to present their findings at the beginning of May.
French authorities detained all four people suspected of burglary. However, they did not manage to trace his mastermind or the stolen jewelry.
A series of incidents in the most visited museum
In recent months, the museum has experienced a whole series of events that tarnished its reputation. In addition to the aforementioned theft, they include, for example, an employee strike, an investigation into fraud involving the sale of counterfeit tickets and reservations for guided tours, or a water leak in November that damaged hundreds of books in the Egyptian antiquities department.
The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world, welcoming 8.7 million visitors in 2024, 69 percent of them from abroad.
