By THOMAS ADAMSON Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — The Louvre reopened on Wednesday to long lines beneath its landmark Paris glass pyramid, just three days after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.
The thieves slipped in and out, making off with eight pieces from France’s Crown Jewels at the world’s most-visited museum — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre-Dame cathedral in 2019.
The Sunday raid — steps from the Mona Lisa and valued at over $100 million — has put embattled President Emmanuel Macron, Louvre chief Laurence des Cars and others under fresh scrutiny. It comes just months after employees went on strike, warning of chronic understaffing and underresourced protections, with too few eyes on too many rooms.
Crowds bunched at the barriers as they were being removed Wednesday, a coda to frantic forensic work and staff briefings that had taken place. Inside, the scene of the crime — the Apollo Gallery housing the Crown Diamonds — stayed sealed, a folding screen obscuring the doorway at the gallery’s rotunda entrance.
Disbelief among visitors
Three days on, the jewels remain missing and the thieves are still at large — and reactions are divided.
“For a place like the Louvre, it’s unfathomable,” said Amanda Lee, 36, an art teacher from Chicago. “I heard it took under four minutes. How is that possible here, with no police in sight?”
Others were unperturbed.
“We told the kids it’s a history lesson. The Apollo Room is shut, but we saw the masterpieces,” said Claire Martin, 41, a French lawyer from Versailles visiting with her two children during a school holiday.
“We came for the art,” she said. “The police can deal with the thieves.”
France acknowledges failings
Authorities say the thieves spent less than four minutes inside the Louvre on Sunday morning: a freight lift was wheeled to the Seine-facing façade, a window was forced open and two vitrines were smashed.
Then came the getaway on motorbikes through central Paris. Alarms had gone off, drawing agents to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt.
“We have failed,” Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said, noting that the ability to plant a freight lift undetected on a public way projects “a very negative image of France.”
As it reopened, the Louvre declined questions from The Associated Press to detail any reinforced protocols. It said no uniformed police were posted in the corridors. With school holidays swelling demand, the day was fully booked and access limited.
“I didn’t notice extra security — guards as always, and no police inside. It felt like a normal day,” said Tomás Álvarez, 29, a software engineer from Madrid.
Wednesday’s opening followed a routine closure on Tuesday, a day when the museum is normally shut.
The loot
The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.
They also made off with an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.
One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown, with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.
Fears the jewels will be destroyed
Prosecutor Laure Beccuau valued the haul at about €88 million ($102 million), a “spectacular” figure that still fails to capture the works’ historical weight. She warned the thieves would be unlikely to realize anything close to that sum if they pry out stones or melt the metals — a fate curators fear would pulverize centuries of meaning into anonymous gems for the black market.
Beccuau said expert analyses are underway; four people have been identified as present at the scene, and roughly 100 investigators are mapping the crew and any accomplices.
The heist has intensified scrutiny of the Louvre’s security. Museum director Laurence des Cars appeared before the Senate’s culture committee Wednesday but top officials have, for now, refused to remove her.
Those include Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who also drew fire Tuesday after telling lawmakers there had been no security failings.
Questions about Louvre’s security overhaul
All this comes after Macron announced new measures in January for the Louvre — complete with a new command post and expanded camera grid that the culture ministry says is being rolled out.
It also raises hard questions, including whether Sunday’s breach is tied to staffing levels, and how uniformly the upgrades in the overhaul are being applied.
“It’s a scandal of planning,” said Luca Romano, 52, a civil engineer from Milan visiting Paris with his wife. “If you can plant a freight lift at a palace and no one stops you, that’s a system failure.”
Protection for headline works is airtight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled case — yet the break-in exposed seams elsewhere in a 33,000-object labyrinth. For many French, the contrast is a public embarrassment at the landmark.
It touches a raw nerve: the issue of swelling crowds and overstretched staff.
In June, a staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing delayed opening. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight access and visitor flows intersect.
On Wednesday, the Louvre’s other star attractions — from the Venus de Milo to the Winged Victory of Samothrace — were open again. But the cordoned-off vitrines in the Apollo Room, guarded and empty, told a different story: one of a breach measured not just in minutes and euros, but in the fragility of a nation’s patrimony.