“Within the occasion of a theft just like the one which occurred Sunday on the Louvre, nationwide museums are left with nothing however tears.” Romain Déchelette, president of a French insurance coverage agency, informed Le Parisien.
Jewellery stolen from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery, which accommodates France’s historic assortment of crown jewels.Credit score: Louvre Museum
Questions have arisen in regards to the Louvre safety – and whether or not safety cameras might need failed – after thieves rode a basket carry up the Louvre’s facade, pressured a window, smashed show instances and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels on Sunday morning.
“The Louvre museum’s safety equipment didn’t fail, that may be a reality,” the minister, Rachida Dati, informed lawmakers within the Nationwide Meeting. “The Louvre museum’s safety equipment labored.”
Dati stated she launched an administrative inquiry that comes along with a police investigation to make sure full transparency into what occurred. She didn’t supply any particulars about how the thieves managed to hold out their heist on condition that the cameras have been working.
However she described it as a painful blow for the nation.
The theft was “a wound for all of us,” she stated. “Why? As a result of the Louvre is excess of the world’s largest museum. It’s a showcase for our French tradition and our shared patrimony.”
Inside Minister Laurent Nuñez stated Monday that the museum’s alarm was triggered when the window of the Apollo Gallery was pressured.
Law enforcement officials arrived on web site two or three minutes after they have been known as by a person that witnessed the scene, he stated on LCI tv.
Officers stated the heist lasted lower than eight minutes in complete, together with lower than 4 minutes contained in the Louvre.
Nuñez didn’t disclose particulars about video surveillance cameras which will have filmed the thieves round and within the museum pending a police investigation. “There are cameras throughout the Louvre,” he stated.
Sunday’s theft targeted on the gilded Apollo Gallery, the place the Crown Diamonds are displayed. Alarms introduced Louvre brokers to the room, forcing the intruders to bolt, however the theft was already over.
Eight objects have been taken, in line with officers: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from an identical set linked to Nineteenth-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second spouse; a reliquary brooch; and Empress Eugénie’s diadem and her giant corsage-bow brooch, a prized Nineteenth-century imperial ensemble.
AP
