Thieves in balaclavas broke into the Louvre museum in Paris, using a crane to smash an upstairs window, then stole priceless objects from an area that houses the French crown jewels before escaping on motorbikes, officials said.
The robbery on Sunday raises awkward questions about security at the museum, where officials had already sounded the alarm about lack of investment at a world-famous site, home to artworks such as the Mona Lisa, that welcomed 8.7 million visitors in 2024.
"The theft committed at the Louvre is an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our History," French President Emmanuel Macron said on X.
"We will recover the works, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice."
The thieves struck at about 9.30am local time when the museum had already opened its doors to the public, and entered the Galerie d'Apollon building, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on BFM TV.
The museum remained shut while French police investigated the robbery. Source: Getty / Kiran Ridley
A total of nine objects were targeted by the criminals, and eight were actually stolen. The thieves lost the ninth one, the crown of Napoleon III's wife, Empress Eugenie, during their escape, Beccuau said.
"It's worth several tens of millions of euros, just this crown. And it's not, in my opinion, the most important item," Drouot auction house president Alexandre Giquello said.
'I don't have an explanation'
Beccuau said it was a mystery why the thieves did not steal the Regent diamond, which is housed in the Galerie d'Apollon and is estimated to be worth more than $92 million by Sotheby's.
"I don't have an explanation," she said.
"It'll only be when they're in custody and face investigators that we'll know what type of order they had and why they didn't target that window."
Beccuau said one of the thieves was wearing a yellow reflective vest, which investigators have since recovered. She added that the robbers tried and failed to set fire to the crane, mounted on the back of a small truck, as they fled.
Interior minister Laurent Nunez said the probe had been entrusted to a specialised police unit that has a high success rate in cracking high-profile robberies.
Investigators were keeping all leads open, Beccuau said.
But she said it was likely the robbery was either commissioned by a collector, in which case there was a chance of recovering the pieces in a good state, or undertaken by thieves interested only in the valuable jewels and precious metals. She said foreign interference was not among the main hypotheses.
The Louvre, the world's most-visited museum, said on X it would remain closed for the day for "exceptional reasons".
The Mona Lisa was stolen from the museum in 1911 in one of the most daring art thefts in history, in a heist involving a former employee. He was eventually caught and the painting was returned to the museum two years later.
Earlier this year, officials at the Louvre requested urgent help from the French government to restore and renovate the museum's ageing exhibition halls and better protect its countless works of art.
