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French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday accepted the resignation of the head of Paris’s Louvre Museum, which has been grappling with the fallout from a high-profile jewel heist and rolling strikes.
Laurence des Cars tendered her resignation, which Macron accepted, “praising an act of responsibility at a time when the world’s largest museum needs calm and a strong new impetus to successfully carry out major projects involving security, and modernization,” his office said.
The Louvre has been roiled by a robbery in October, when four burglars made off with jewels worth about 87 million euros (about $140 million Cdn) in about eight minutes.
Des Cars acknowledged the “terrible failure,” in testimony to a French legislative committee days later and offered to resign, but the offer was refused at the time by France’s culture minister.
Since then, the museum has been hit by more woes, and beleaguered staff angered by layoffs, pay and working conditions have been conducting rolling strikes since December.
Ticket fraud scheme alleged
Earlier this month, French police detained several people as part of an investigation into a Louvre ticket fraud that may have cost the world’s most visited museum 10 million euros ($16.15 million Cdn) in revenues.
The investigation began as the Louvre flagged in December 2024 the presence of two Chinese guides who were suspected of getting groups of Chinese tourists into the museum reusing single-entry tickets for different people. After more than a year of checks, police identified a fully-fledged network that may have let in fraudulently up to 20 groups of tourists per day over a decade-long period while bribing Louvre officials to turn a blind eye.
The ring is suspected of having invested the proceeds in real estate in France and Dubai, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
WATCH | How the brazen heist in October was pulled off:
How thieves pulled off a brazen crown jewel heist at the Louvre | About That
The Louvre is now the site of what some are calling the heist of the decade. Andrew Chang breaks down how France’s crown jewels were stolen, and why the pieces may be impossible to recover. Plus, how China won the rare earths race against the U.S.
In the October robbery, thieves made off 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 stole an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, and 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.
Officials later said the robbers used disc cutters meant for concrete to cut through the display cases.
The robbery highlighted the fact the museum has been plagued by security shortgaps, an issue it was in the midst of addressing. In late November, Des Cars announced the first batch of a planned 100 surveillance cameras that are to be installed by the end of 2026.
The museum has also been hit by a pair of water leaks within three months. A 19th-century painting was damaged in a leak earlier this month, while between 300 and 400 works that included documents and journals were damaged in a November leak.
Last month, the Louvre raised ticket prices by 45 per cent for most non-European Union tourists to help finance renovations.