The thieves who stole jewelry from the Louvre evaded capture in October “by a hair’s breadth,” a senior official from the administrative inquiry into the museum’s security failings told the French Senate on Wednesday, as reported by Le Figaro.
Noël Corbin, director of the General Inspectorate of Cultural Affairs (IGAC), noted that Louvre agents or the police had a chance to prevent their escape.
Another rapporteur for the investigation, Pascal Mignerey, from the Security, Safety and Audit Mission (Missa) at the French Ministry of Culture, stressed that an exterior camera on the museum had “clearly filmed the arrival of the thieves, the installation of the platform, the ascent of the two thieves to the balcony, and, a few minutes later, their hasty departure.”
However, this footage was not monitored in real time. By the time a security guard watched it, “it was already too late, as the thieves had left the Apollo Gallery,” where the French crown jewels were on display, according to Corbin.
The chairman of the commission, senator Laurent Lafon, stated that the inquiry’s findings point to “the general failure of both the museum and its governing body to address security concerns” prior to the heist. The loss of the jewels, Lafon added, “was not an accidental failure” and “was not due to a series of unfortunate events, but rather to decisions that were not made to ensure security,” even though the system shortcomings “had all been identified by several previous studies with largely consistent results.”
Corbin also said that the authors of the report were “very surprised” by “the problem with the transmission of security audits” within Louvre, particularly during the 2021 leadership transition to Laurence des Cars. Citing a lack of institutional “memory,” he noted that a 2019 audit by the jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels—which had identified all the weaknesses of the Apollo Gallery—had not been transmitted to the new leadership.
The hearing arrives amid a compounding crisis at the world’s most-visited museum. On Monday, 200 Louvre staffers across three unions unanimously voted to strike starting December 15, threatening to leave the museum understaffed during the busy holiday period. The decision came one day after Louvre deputy general administrator Francis Steinbeck told BFM-TV that a leak had damaged hundreds of books in the Egyptian department library.
In the strike notice to the Ministry of Culture, the CGT, CFDT, and Sud unions said “visiting the Louvre has become a real obstacle course” for visitors, saying that the institution was in “crisis,” with “increasingly deteriorated working conditions.” They cited the October 19 theft as being emblematic of the “shortcomings in priorities that had long been reported.”
Staff frustration had been building over unresolved maintenance and security issues that have put valuable artworks and artifacts at risk.
The announcement of a €700 million–€800 million renovation plan, dubbed the “Louvre New Renaissance,” which includes a dedicated, timed-entry room for the Mona Lisa, and a new entrance, did little to quell concerns. In June, staff staged a walkout that forced a full-day closure. (The “Louvre New Renaissance” will now prioritize modernizing its infrastructure for security and overcrowding issues, museum leadership announced.)
The situation escalated in October with now-infamous theft of $102 million in French royal jewels, a scandal that spurred fierce criticism of museum security protocols. Staff reportedly booed des Cars during an internal meeting, and she later offered her resignation to culture minister Rachida Dati, who declined to accept it.
In a November interview with the New York Times, des Cars pushed back on claims that she had neglected security at the Louvre, saying she had already commissioned a broad security review and a new master plan. Implementation, she stressed, has been slowed by the Louvre’s vast scale and bureaucratic oversight.
“You don’t launch an 80 million-euro master plan—because it’s more than 80 million euros now—just like that,” she said. “There are rules, there are stages in public procurement, there are study phases, there are phases for putting companies into competition.”
