The Louvre in Paris reopened on Wednesday for the first time since four thieves staged a brazen daylight robbery at the museum, as the French authorities come under growing pressure to address security lapses at the famed cultural institution.
The thieves used an electric ladder and power tools to break into the Apollo Gallery, where they stole eight pieces of jewelry on Sunday that were worth more than $100 million, according to the French authorities.
The gallery, a second-floor room of the museum that houses France’s crown jewels, remained closed.
The theft has intensified the scrutiny on French authorities and whether the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, was sufficiently protected. Laurence des Cars, the head of the museum, who has not commented publicly since the robbery, is expected to face difficult questions at a Senate hearing later on Wednesday.
Over 100 investigators are racing to find the culprits, with some art crime experts warning that the thieves could break up the jewelry to sell the precious stones and metals on the black market.
“I have every confidence in their ability to find the perpetrators despite the passing days,” Laurent Nuñez, France’s interior minister, told Europe 1 radio .
The government, however, has sent mixed messages over how much responsibility it was willing to accept. Gérald Darmanin, the justice minister, said earlier this week on French radio that “we failed.”
But Rachida Dati, the culture minister, has insisted that the Louvre’s security had not fallen short.
“Did the Louvre Museum’s internal security measures work? Yes,” Ms. Dati told the French Senate on Wednesday. “Did the alarms work? Yes.”
Still, Ms. Dati said that she had ordered an internal investigation and that the museum was already in the process of installing additional video surveillance cameras and creating new security command posts.
The Louvre, a palace turned into a museum after the French Revolution, is a sprawling maze that exhibits over 30,000 of its 500,000 artworks in more than 400 rooms. .
“It’s my home,” said Carole Chevallier, 42, an artist who was waiting in line to enter the museum, where she is reproducing a work by Jacob van Ruisdael, a 17th-century Dutch painter. “I’ve been coming here for 15 or 20 years, ever since I was an art student,” she added.
Some of those visiting the museum after it reopened took the robbery in stride.
“I know that the French perspective is that of a national humiliation,” said Raquel Morales, 29, from Marbella, Spain. “But it’s a thing that can happen and you cannot control it.”
Others, however, expressed shock that key parts of French heritage had vanished in less than 10 minutes, and disappointment that they were not yet able to visit the Apollo Gallery.
“I would have liked to see it,” said Karine Pivetta, 38, a visitor from the south of France. “They are the jewelry of our history, of France’s history.”
Her son, Lucas, did not seem to mind — he was mostly interested in seeing the Mona Lisa. But Emilie Sarran, 39, who was accompanying the pair, said she was stunned by the theft. “It is surprising that in a big museum like the Louvre they could do that,” she said.
Ms. des Cars, who became the museum’s first woman president-director in 2021 after being appointed by President Emmanuel Macron, has not publicly addressed the incident. But the robbery has renewed worries about a lack of surveillance cameras, the functioning of the museum’s alarm systems and the strength of the glass display cases that the thieves cut into using power tools.
The Cour des Comptes, France’s national auditor, had started preparing a report on security and other matters at the Louvre before the robbery. According to a confidential draft of the report that was seen by The New York Times, the museum had inadequate video surveillance, as well as huge reductions and delays in security spending in recent years.
The report will also indicate that spending on security in 2024 was far lower than it was 20 years ago, according to the draft.
Pierre Moscovici, the head of the Cour des Comptes, said that the full report would be made public in the coming weeks. But it “does not reveal anything that is unknown to the administration,” he told RTL radio, suggesting that the French authorities were aware of some security flaws before the robbery.
The Louvre has an annual operating budget of about $300 million, about a third of which is provided by the French state. It attracted nearly nine million visitors last year.
But the museum is much more than a tourist attraction. It is a symbol of France’s cultural clout, and an important soft-power instrument for the French state — which is now under fire after such a prized institution came under brazen attack.
“I am not underestimating what our fellow citizens must have felt,” Maud Bregeon, France’s government spokeswoman, told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. But, she added, “let’s keep our cool, let the investigation run its course, and then we can all draw our own conclusions.”
Ségolène Le Stradic and Elaine Sciolino contributed reporting.
Aurelien Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France.
Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.
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