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French senators criticised the Louvre’s security on Tuesday and called for improved measures following a brazen jewellery heist at the Paris landmark earlier this month.
Thieves stole jewels valued at €88 million from the world’s most-visited museum on 19 October. It took them just under eight minutes to pull off the robbery.
The four intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, opened a breach in display cases and fled, according to French officials.
The haul included a sapphire diadem, necklace and an earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.
The daytime theft of centuries-old jewels of significant cultural and monetary value has captured the world’s attention for its audacity and movie plot-like details.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday after visiting the Louvre with fellow senators, Laurent Lafon, head of the culture committee at the French Senate, said there “are many improvements to be made” to the museum’s security.
“Our security system does not meet nowadays’ standards,” he said.
Lafon said that there was a “weakness” with outdoor cameras that facilitated the robbery, but would not provide further details for “confidentiality reasons”.
The senators called for a speedy start of massive renovation work that was already planned — and said this should happen as soon as possible, since France’s budget for 2026 is currently being debated in the parliament.
The decade-long Louvre New Renaissance plan, which includes security improvements, was launched earlier this year. It’s believed it would cost up to €800 million to modernise infrastructure, ease crowding and ensure the Mona Lisa has a dedicated gallery by 2031.
Police arrested two suspects on Sunday and are currently questioning them. The suspects have not been identified.
One of them was stopped at an airport in the French capital while trying to leave the country, according to Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau.
The two thieves who entered the Louvre on 19 October were assisted by two others, who waited outside the museum before fleeing along the Seine river, prosecutors said, adding that additional arrests may follow as the investigation continues.
Beccuau said a probe has been opened into potential charges of criminal conspiracy and organised theft, which can carry huge fines and lengthy prison sentences.
More than 100 investigators are assigned to the case and are combing through 150 DNA samples, surveillance footage and evidence left behind in the thieves’ wake.
Recovering the jewels could be among the most difficult parts of investigators’ work. French authorities have added the jewels to Interpol’s Stolen Works of Art Database, a global repository of about 57,000 missing cultural items.
Additional sources • AP
