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21-10-2025
PARIS: French Culture Minister Rachida Dati on Sunday reported a theft at the Louvre in Paris as the world-renowned museum said it was closing for the day.
“A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the Louvre Museum,” she wrote on social media. The Louvre said it was closing for the day “for exceptional reasons”, without providing further details on what had been stolen.
There were no injuries reported. Dati said she was at the museum and investigations were underway.
Paris police said one or more criminals had broken into the museum but did not provide any details about the possible theft of artworks, according to media.
A police source told media that an unknown number of thieves arrived at the Louvre on a scooter armed with small chainsaws and used a freight elevator to reach the room they were targeting.
Louvre museum authorities could not immediately be reached for comment, according to French media reports but the Louvre confirmed that the museum was closed Sunday due to “exceptional reasons”, in a post on social media.
According to French daily, Le Parisien, the criminals entered the sprawling building from the facade facing the Seine River, where construction work is underway.
They used a freight elevator “to gain direct access to the targeted room in the Apollo Gallery,” the paper reported. After breaking the windows, they reportedly stole “nine pieces from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress”, said the report.
In January, France 24 had published a news under the title “Louvre museum’s poor conditions prompt outcry” that what will become of the Louvre? The prestigious Paris museum has, since last week, been at the heart of a controversy after a private memo detailing the dilapidated state of the building written by the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, leaked to the press.
Des Cars described damage, deterioration and overcrowding in her memo sent to France’s culture minister.
Employees have witnessed such problems first hand. “On a daily basis, we have a lot of problems with water infiltration via rooves and broken pipes,” says Elise Muller, a security guard at the Louvre and national secretary of the Sud Culture union.
“When there is heavy rain, water run off sometimes reaches paintings on display. We have to close off rooms every day. More and more, elevators are also out of order,” she adds. “All our warnings have not been listened to.”
To combat the leaks, staff often “end up putting buckets in offices”, Christian Galani says, representative for the museums’ CGT union and a member of its national board but sometimes that is not enough. “It’s not unusual for us to make emergency calls to conservationists so that they can take artworks down,” Muller says.
Particularly bad water leakage in 2023 caused the shutdown, four days after opening, of an exhibition dedicated to French painter Claude Gillot.
Overcrowding
The world’s largest museum is supposed to be able to accommodate 4 million annual visitors after “major work” carried out on the building under former president François Mitterrand’s “Grand Louvre” project from 1981-1993
In 2024, visitor numbers were more than double that, with 8.7 million visitors, 80% of whom were foreign tourists.
President Emmanuel Macron reacted swiftly to the Louvre’s current controversy, announcing a visit to the museum on Tuesday during which he is expected to make announcements about its future.
“The Louvre is a symbol of France. It is a source of French pride. It would be a mistake to remain deaf and blind to the risks that face the museum today,” a statement from his office said on Friday. (Int’l News Desk)
