Louvre director acknowledges failure after jewel heist and says she
offered to resign
[October 23, 2025]
By THOMAS ADAMSON and SYLVIE CORBET
PARIS (AP) — The Louvre's director on Wednesday acknowledged a "terrible
failure" at the Paris tourist attraction after a daylight crown jewel
heist over the weekend, and said that she offered to resign but it was
refused.
The world's most-visited museum reopened earlier in the day to long
lines beneath its landmark glass pyramid for the first time since one of
the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with
its audacity and scale.
In testimony to the French Senate, Louvre director Laurence des Cars
said that the museum had a shortage of security cameras outside the
monument and other ″weaknesses″ exposed by Sunday’s theft.
Under heavy pressure over a heist that stained France’s global image,
she testified to a Senate committee that she submitted her resignation,
but that the culture minister refused to accept it.
“Today we are experiencing a terrible failure at the Louvre, which I
take my share of responsibility in,” she said.
The thieves slipped in and out, making off with eight pieces from
France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the
burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.
Late detection
The theft — steps away from the “Mona Lisa” and valued at more than $100
million — has put embattled President Emmanuel Macron, Culture Minister
Rachida Dati, des Cars and others under new scrutiny. It comes just
months after employees went on strike, warning of chronic understaffing
and not enough resources for protection, with too few eyes on too many
rooms.
“We did not detect the arrival of the thieves soon enough,” des Cars
said.
She said that the museum’s alarms had worked properly, but that it
currently doesn't have full video surveillance of the perimeter outside
the museum, though there is a plan to provide full coverage of all the
Louvre's facades.
She also suggested barriers to prevent vehicles from parking directly
alongside the museum’s buildings, and said that she would push for a
police station inside the museum, which welcomes 30,000 visitors a day
and 2,300 workers.
Disbelief among visitors
Three days on, the jewels remain missing and the thieves are still at
large — and reactions are divided.
"For a place like the Louvre, it’s unfathomable,” said Amanda Lee, 36,
an art teacher from Chicago. “I heard it took under four minutes. How is
that possible here, with no police in sight?”
Others were unperturbed.
Claire Martin, a 41-year-old French lawyer from Versailles visiting with
her two children during a school holiday, said that “we saw the
masterpieces” even though the Apollo Gallery was shut.
“We told the kids it’s a history lesson. We came for the art," she said.
"The police can deal with the thieves.”
France acknowledges failings
Authorities say the thieves spent less than four minutes inside the
Louvre on Sunday morning: a freight lift was wheeled to the Seine-facing
facade, a window was forced open and two vitrines were smashed.
Then came the getaway on motorbikes through central Paris. Alarms had
gone off, drawing agents to the gallery and forcing the intruders to
bolt.
As it reopened, the Louvre declined questions from The Associated Press
to detail any reinforced protocols. It said that no uniformed police
were posted in the corridors. With school holidays swelling demand, the
day was fully booked and access limited.
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Laurence des Cars, director of Le Louvre museum, poses before a
hearing at the Culture commission of the Senate, three days after
historic jewels were stolen in a daring daylight heist, Wednesday,
Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
“I didn’t notice extra security — guards as always, and no police
inside. It felt like a normal day,” said Tomás Álvarez, 29, a
software engineer from Madrid.
The loot
The thieves made away 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 made off with an emerald necklace and earrings tied to
Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as 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.
Fears the jewels will be destroyed
Prosecutor Laure Beccuau valued the haul at about 88 million euros
($102 million), a “spectacular” figure that still fails to capture
the works’ historical weight. She warned that the thieves would be
unlikely to realize anything close to that sum if they pry out
stones or melt the metals — a fate curators fear would pulverize
centuries of meaning into anonymous gems for the black market.
Beccuau said that expert analyses are underway; four people have
been identified as being present at the scene, and roughly 100
investigators are mapping the crew and any accomplices, in addition
to forensics experts.
Security overhaul
All this comes after Macron announced new measures in January for
the Louvre — complete with a new command post and expanded camera
grid that the Culture Ministry says is being rolled out.
It also raises hard questions, including whether Sunday’s breach is
tied to staffing levels, and how uniformly the upgrades in the
overhaul are being applied.
Protection for headline works is airtight — the “Mona Lisa” is
behind bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled case — yet the
break-in exposed seams elsewhere in a 33,000-object labyrinth. For
many French, the contrast is a public embarrassment at the landmark.
It touches a raw nerve: the issue of swelling crowds and
overstretched staff.
In June, a staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing
delayed opening. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves security
lacking and creates pressure points where construction zones,
freight access and visitor flows intersect.
On Wednesday, the Louvre’s other star attractions — from the Venus
de Milo to the Winged Victory of Samothrace — were open again. But
the cordoned-off vitrines in the Apollo Gallery, guarded and empty,
told a different story: one of a breach measured not just in minutes
and euros, but in the fragility of a nation’s patrimony.
___
Angela Charlton contributed to this report.
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