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FRANCE IN FOCUS © FRANCE 24 12:18 Issued on: 10/03/2026 - 16:38
Play (12:18 min) From the show Reading time 1 min An emblematic monument of French culture, the Louvre Museum embodies nearly 9,000 years of history and houses more than 600,000 works of art across over 70,000 square metres of gallery space. It is the most visited museum in the world, welcoming around nine million visitors each year – well beyond the capacity for which it was originally designed. In recent years, the institution has been shaken by a series of crises, including a major robbery, fraud and labour tensions.
On October 19, 2025, the unthinkable happened: robbers entered the museum through a window in the Apollo Gallery and stole the French Crown Jewels, worth an estimated €88 million. The theft exposed serious security weaknesses within the institution.
Five months later, David Desclos returned to the scene. The former burglar had been invited to the Louvre in 2020 to record a podcast. Standing near the balcony used by the thieves, he expressed his frustration: “Bars have been installed on that single window, but when you look around, the place is like Swiss cheese. There are no bars anywhere else, every window is accessible. That’s reckless.”
According to Desclos, the windows are not the only weaknesses at the Louvre. He also points to the so-called “gutter cats”, thieves able to move quickly across the rooftops of Paris and who are virtually impossible to catch. France 24 put his assessment to the police.
“He’s absolutely right,” says Axel Ronde, spokesman for the CFTC police union. “There are genuine commandos capable of deploying quickly and in large numbers. That’s why some sensitive sites have installed barbed wire along their rooftops. But the Louvre is a listed monument – you can’t just add anything to it.”
Louvre employees are also raising concerns about ageing infrastructure that goes far beyond security. “For years we’ve been warning about the building’s obsolescence and outdated technical systems. Security has been widely discussed since the robbery, but the problem is far worse than that,” says Gary Guillot, secretary of the CGT union at the Louvre.
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