**Daring Daylight Heist at the Louvre: Priceless Napoleonic Jewels Stolen Amid Worker Strike**
*PARIS* — In a rapid, minutes-long strike on Sunday, thieves exploited a rare vulnerability inside the world’s most-visited museum, the Louvre, to steal priceless Napoleonic jewels. The audacious heist unfolded as visitors packed the corridors shoulder to shoulder, while the criminals rode a basket lift to the Galerie d’Apollon, forced entry through a window, smashed display cases, and fled with the coveted treasures.
The incident marks one of the most high-profile museum thefts in recent memory and highlights ongoing concerns voiced by Louvre employees over understaffing in both worker and security roles.
### The Stolen Treasures and the Heist Details
Culture Minister Rachida Dati later revealed that one of the stolen items was found outside the museum. According to French daily *Le Parisien*, it was the emerald-studded crown of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III — a piece adorned with gold, diamonds, and sculpted eagles — recovered broken just beyond the walls.
Describing the strike on TF1 TV, Dati called it the work of “professionals,” labeling it “a four-minute operation carried out without violence.” Security footage and images from the scene showed bewildered tourists being guided out of the iconic glass pyramid and adjoining courtyards as police sealed off nearby streets along the Seine. Also visible was a lift braced against the Seine-facing façade, adjacent to a construction zone—an unusual and critical security gap at the historic palace-museum.
### A Museum Under Strain
Around 9:30 a.m., several intruders forced open a window in the Denon wing, cutting glass panes with a disc cutter, and made a beeline for the display vitrines in the Galerie d’Apollon, officials confirmed. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez added that the gang gained access from the outside using a basket lift.
The choice of target intensified the shock. The Galerie d’Apollon is a vaulted hall crowned by a ceiling painted during the reign of Louis XIV and houses a precious selection of the French Crown Jewels. Daylight robberies during public hours at such an iconic museum are extraordinarily rare.
Pulling off such a brazen theft inside the Louvre while visitors were present ranks among the boldest in Europe since the 2019 robbery at Dresden’s Green Vault museum and is the most serious museum theft in France in over a decade.
The heist also exposes a longstanding tension facing the Louvre: swelling crowds combined with stretched and understaffed museum and security teams. In June, the museum delayed opening due to a staff strike protesting overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions have warned that the pressure from mass tourism leaves too few staff to adequately monitor numerous rooms, creating vulnerabilities at intersections of construction zones, freight routes, and heavy visitor flows.
Despite these challenges, security around marquee artworks remains stringent. For example, the Mona Lisa is safeguarded behind bulletproof glass housed in a climate-controlled, bespoke case. Whether staffing shortages contributed to Sunday’s security breach remains unclear.
### A Historical Context
The Louvre has long been a target for art thieves and attempted robberies. Its most famous theft occurred in 1911, when Vincenzo Peruggia made off with the Mona Lisa, which was recovered two years later in Florence.
Today, the former royal palace displays a vast array of cultural treasures—from Leonardo da Vinci’s *Mona Lisa* to the armless serenity of the *Venus de Milo*, the wind-scoured *Winged Victory of Samothrace* on the Daru staircase, the ancient carved laws of the *Code of Hammurabi*, Delacroix’s *Liberty Leading the People*, and Géricault’s *The Raft of the Medusa*. The museum’s collection of over 33,000 works from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the classical world, and Europe draws up to 30,000 visitors daily, even as investigators now scour its gilded corridors for clues.
### Political Fallout
The theft quickly sparked political reactions. Far-right leader Jordan Bardella seized on the incident to criticize President Emmanuel Macron, whose government faces challenges at home and a fractured parliament.
On social media platform X, Bardella wrote: “The Louvre is a global symbol of our culture. This robbery, which allowed thieves to steal jewels from the French Crown, is an unbearable humiliation for our country. How far will the decay of the state go?”
The criticism comes as Macron promotes his decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” initiative, a roughly €700 million plan aimed at modernizing the museum’s infrastructure, easing crowding, and providing the Mona Lisa with a dedicated gallery by 2031. However, for frontline workers, relief has not come quickly enough amid growing pressures.
### Ongoing Investigation
Forensic teams continue to examine the crime scene and surrounding access points as authorities conduct a full inventory of the missing items. Officials describe the stolen jewels as having “inestimable” historical value.
The Louvre remained closed for the rest of Sunday while police secured gates, cleared courtyards, and closed nearby streets along the Seine.
Key questions remain unanswered: how many perpetrators were involved and whether they had inside assistance. According to *Le Parisien*, there were four thieves—two disguised as construction workers in yellow safety vests on the lift, and two others arriving on scooters.
Investigators are reviewing CCTV footage from the Denon wing and riverfront, inspecting the basket lift used to access the gallery, and interviewing staff present when the museum opened.
*Associated Press writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.*
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/19/crown-jewels-stolen-louvre-museum/