{"id":715488,"date":"2026-07-28T14:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715488\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T14:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:10:10","slug":"culture-minister-catherine-pegard-reveals-national-security-plan-following-another-major-museum-theft-in-france-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715488\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture minister Catherine P\u00e9gard reveals \u2018national security plan\u2019 following another major museum theft in France – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The French culture minister Catherine P\u00e9gard has called on museums to protect their treasures “by all possible means\u201d\u00a0following a spate of violent burglaries targeting silverware and jewellery across the country. On Monday (27 July), nine months after the theft of the French crown jewels from the Mus\u00e9e du Louvre, the minister unveiled a \u201cnational security plan\u201d at a press briefing, warning that \u201cno place is being spared, from the smallest church to the biggest museum\u201d.<\/p>\n

The most recent museum robbery happened last Thursday (23 July) when a major archeological object was stolen from the Mus\u00e9e du Pays Ch\u00e2tillonnais in the Burgundy region. Two men smashed a glass case in front of visitors and grabbed the collar of the \u201cLady of Vix\u201d (around 500BC). The 1lb solid gold collar was the most significant piece found in\u00a0the grave of a Celtic princess discovered in 1953. One suspect has been arrested, P\u00e9gard says, but no details have been given on the investigation. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The collar of the \u201cLady of Vix\u201d (around 500BC) \u00a9 Rosemania via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

Other recent thefts have taken place at a museum dedicated to the jeweller Lalique in Alsace<\/a> in eastern France and at the Mus\u00e9e du Hi\u00e9ron in central France. <\/p>\n

Since the Louvre heist on 19 October 2025, more than 3,100 museums, monuments and churches have been mapped as sensitive places, P\u00e9gard said at the press briefing. Her ministry has budgeted \u20ac30m over three years to improve security at local museums. However, \u201cthere is no risk zero\u201d, she admitted. She noted that the Mus\u00e9e du Pays Ch\u00e2tillonnais had spent \u20ac150,000 over the past two years on reinforcing its gates and installing cameras. After two failed break-in attempts\u00a0at night, the perpetrators chose to act in broad daylight.<\/p>\n

The shock created by the disappearance of the Vix collar was such that Dominique Garcia, the president of France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, urged museums to place their silverware and jewels in safes and replace them with copies, \u201cwhich are getting better and better\u201d. The new Louvre director Christophe Leribault chose to reopen the museum’s Apollo Gallery on 22 July emptied of its jewellery.<\/p>\n

However, P\u00e9gard argued that \u201cit would be a grave mistake to replace our masterworks, which have to be displayed, with copies\u201d. She insisted that \u201ceach solution should be adapted to the local situation\u201d. P\u00e9gard also disregarded the idea of posting armed guards to protect the most vulnerable galleries. Following three parliamentary reports on the matter, her plan includes 33 security measures, from infrastructure improvement to better training, \u201cplacing the safety of collections as the first priority of all\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The French culture minister Catherine P\u00e9gard has called on museums to protect their treasures “by all possible means\u201d\u00a0following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,819,10748,10345,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-715488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-france","tag-museums","tag-museums-heritage","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}