Two men have been arrested in relation to the brazen robbery of the French crown jewels at the Mus\u00e9e du Louvre in Paris. The pair are being questioned for \u201cgang theft\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed the arrests, but declined to give any details until after the suspects\u2019 interrogation, which can go on for up to four days. France\u2019s interior minister Laurent Nu\u00f1ez posted a message on X congratulating the police and calling for details of the \u201congoing investigation\u201d, involving 100 officers, to remain a secret.<\/p>\n
According to Paris Match, a weekly magazine, a French-Algerian citizen was apprehended on Saturday night at Paris’ Roissy airport while boarding a flight to Algeria, and the second suspect soon after at an address in the\u00a0Paris suburbs, while he was preparing to flee to Mali.<\/p>\n
Both men are in their thirties and came from Seine-Saint-Denis to the north of the capital, according to the daily Le Parisien. There is no news of the eight stolen royal and imperial jewels, valued by the Louvre at \u20ac88m and mounted with more than 8,000 diamonds, sapphires and emeralds.<\/p>\n
According to police sources, both suspects had criminal records and were identified with the help of DNA analysis, along with CCTV footage and phone tracking, within days of\u00a0the theft. Authorities then followed the suspects in a bid to find their accomplices and the jewels, intervening upon their attempt to flee the country.<\/p>\n
The heist, while breathtakingly fast, was nonetheless flawed. The thieves left behind their tools, gloves, a helmet and a yellow vest, as well as the elevator truck they had used, which they failed to set on fire thanks to the intervention of Louvre staff.<\/p>\n
As they fled the building, they also dropped the most valuable item, the crown of Empress Eug\u00e9nie, the wife of Napoleon III. It was spotted by a Louvre employee under the balcony of the Apollo Gallery. Curators say the crown, flattened and damaged when it was pulled through a crack of the protective glass, can be restored.<\/p>\n
A total of 150 samples were collected from\u00a0the crime scene, according to <\/a>Beccau.<\/p>\n An ongoing backlash<\/p>\n Political turmoil around the theft has been intensifying all week. The Louvre\u2019s director Laurence des Cars, when summoned by the French senate, struggled to explain the \u201cconsiderable delays in the maintenance\u201d of the museum\u2019s technical infrastructure that were detailed in a preliminary report by the Cour des comptes, France\u2019s state auditing body. She said she had offered her resignation to\u00a0the culture minister Rachida Dati, who refused it.<\/p>\n Some senators demanded Dati\u2019s\u00a0resignation. Des Cars acknowledged a \u201cterrible failure\u201d, but shifted the blame to her predecessors, claiming the museum was in a derelict state when she took over in 2021. She also deplored the lack of cameras outside the museum, which are the responsibility of the Paris police department. There is only one camera, she said, covering the entire riverbank side of the museum and it does not surveil the balcony of the Apollo Gallery. This enabled the thieves to park an elevator truck on the pavement and climb the ladder without being noticed. According to<\/a> the French national paper Lib\u00e9ration, there are only five cameras watching the museum\u2019s 1300m perimeter. The Louvre declined to comment.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one ever thought of taking care of the safety of the works in museums,\u201d Dati said<\/a> on M6 TV.\u00a0This statement, however, contradicts extracts from the Cour des comptes\u2019s report,\u00a0due to be published in November, and which have been seen by The Art Newspaper. The report says Laurence des Cars\u2019 predecessors launched a comprehensive series of safety plans well before her appointment, which were left \u201clargely unimplemented\u201d.<\/p>\n The report points out that about two thirds of the galleries still are without cameras. During the senate\u2019s hearings, the Louvre\u2019s deputy general administrator, Francis Steinbock, claimed the delays arose from \u201cvery complex studies\u201d that needed to be undertaken ahead of ambitious plans to build a new entrance for the museum, as well as an expansive subterranean complex around the Mona Lisa and an exhibition hall.<\/p>\n Laurence des Cars promised that \u20ac80m of the renovation\u2019s costs will be dedicated to security and safety infrastructure, but the chairman of the senate committee, Laurent Lafon, pointed out at the hearing that funding for the work, which could last for 15 years and cost \u20ac1bn, has yet to be found.<\/p>\n The Louvre reopened its doors\u00a0Wednesday, but the gilded Apollo Gallery of decorative art remains closed. According to RTL radio, all of the Louvre\u2019s jewellery was moved to a safe<\/a> in the Banque de France on Friday, next to the national gold reserves. Among the objects were the\u00a0museum\u2019s most famous diamonds:\u00a0the Regent (140.64 carats) and the Sancy\u00a0(55.23 carats).<\/p>\n