The Louvre Museum estimated this Tuesday the damage caused by the jewels stolen on Sunday from the Apollo Gallery in 88 million eurosaccording to what Parisian prosecutor Laure Beccuau told RTL.
The Parisian art gallery will reopen its doors to the public this Wednesday for the first time since the robbery that occurred three days ago, but the Apollo Gallery, from which the thieves took eight jewels of the French crown, will remain closed for an indefinite period of time, a spokeswoman for the center told EFE this Tuesday, with the hot debate about their safety.
A debate that will also focus this Wednesday on the appearance in the Senate of the president of the Louvre, Laurence de Cars, in office since 2021, while investigators try to extract all possible evidence from the traces and evidence left in their escape by the four members of the commando who carried out the coup last Sunday in just seven minutes.
The museum was evacuated when the robbery occurred, shortly after nine-thirty in the morning, and although on Monday everything was prepared to receive visitors, at the last moment those responsible decided to back out. Tuesday is the weekly closing day.
It was in the Apollo Gallery that two of the thieves entered, after going up to the first floor where it is located thanks to a van with a forklift of those used in moving that had been parked on the south side of the museum, the one that overlooks the Seine River, visible to everyone.
Once they entered the gallery after making a hole in the glass of one of the balcony doors, and with cutting discs they burst two display cases, one with jewels from the time of Napoleon and the other with jewels from the crown of France.
In their flight, they lost the crown of Empress Eugenia de Montijo along the way, which was also damaged. Beyond the economic value of gemstones in jewelry, This theft “even surpasses that of the Mona Lisa in 1911”according to historian Eric Anceau, a specialist in the history of France and Europe in the 19th century, since the stolen pieces represent a part of French history and heritage.
“Beyond the economic value of the more than 8,700 diamonds, 34 sapphires, 38 emeralds and more than 200 stolen pearls, whose price is difficult to quantify, it is as a whole that gives it all its value, and this is precisely inestimable since the stolen pieces They represent a part of the history of France and the common heritage of the French,” Anceau told the newspaper Le Monde.
Parallel to the lament over the loss of a part of French heritage, indignation has taken flight over the lack of security at the Louvre or other French museums.
The French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, defended herself this Tuesday against attacks on possible security failures at the Louvre Museum and insisted that the reinforcement of the device is being carried out but is taking time due to administrative rules.
He stressed that Des Cars had commissioned safety audits in 2022, 2023 and 2024 which had given a number of recommendations that “are being put in place”.
For example, he cited the modernization of video surveillance, which does not exist in all rooms, and which is being deployed; the restructuring of the security control centers, with the creation of a central one, and the deployment of fiber optic and computer networks, which means installing “kilometers of cable”, and which is also something that is being done.
“What happened on Sunday is not a banal incident. It is a serious attack on our historical heritage” and also “a wound for all of us” because the Louvre is “the screen of French culture and our heritage,” Dati said in the Government control session before the National Assembly.