The director of the Louvre has offered to resign after thieves pulled off a $102 million jewel heist inside the world’s most visited museum, a breach now triggering a political firestorm over French security preparedness and cultural stewardship, Newsweek reported.
Louvre Director Laurence des Cars offered her resignation following the theft of eight historic crown jewels worth an estimated $102 million, calling the incident a “terrible failure” and acknowledging that the museum’s aging security infrastructure failed to detect the thieves in time.
Testifying before the French Senate’s culture committee Wednesday, des Cars said the robbery “exposed weaknesses in our protection system,” specifically pointing to camera blind spots in the Galerie d’Apollon — the wing housing royal artifacts.
“We did not spot the arrival of the thieves early enough … the weakness of our perimeter protection is known,” she said. She confirmed she had offered her resignation, but French Culture Minister Rachida Dati refused to accept it.
The heist took place in a matter of minutes early Sunday morning, when four hooded suspects reportedly used a stolen industrial mover’s lift to smash through a second-floor museum window.
Despite security alarms triggering immediately and police responding in under three minutes, the thieves had already vanished, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
Authorities recovered DNA at the scene and have assigned more than 100 officers to the hunt, fearing the jewelry, linked to centuries of French monarchy, may be dismantled or sold on the black market.
Experts have warned that irreversible alteration would destroy both historic and financial value.
According to NBC News, Dati told the National Assembly, “The Louvre Museum is much more than the largest museum in the world. It is the showcase of French culture and our shared heritage.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered a rapid upgrade to the museum’s security systems, a project already planned as part of a multiyear renovation but now expected to accelerate.
Conservative commentators in France and abroad have begun comparing the theft to broader questions of European cultural drift and criminal leniency, particularly amid rising cross-border trafficking networks.
Revered globally as a symbol of Western civilization, the Louvre welcomed 8.7 million visitors last year.
The museum, once a medieval royal fortress, has endured wars, revolutions, and occupation, yet rarely a direct assault. The danger this time, officials note, is that unlike paintings or statues, jewels can be dismantled into fragments and laundered with relative ease.
The Galerie d’Apollon will remain closed for the duration of the investigation. The whereabouts of the jewels remain unknown.
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