Paris — The Louvre will stay closed for a second day operating on Monday, administration instructed AFP, after thieves stole crown jewels from the museum in Paris a day earlier.
“The museum is not opening today,” a museum official instructed AFP.
An indication on the museum instructed guests the museum remained closed as a result of “exceptional circumstances” and mentioned all guests with tickets for the day can be reimbursed.
“The museum is closed for the whole day,” a member of workers instructed guests.
Shortly earlier than the announcement, queues of impatient guests snaked their method throughout the museum’s pyramid courtyard and underneath the arches of the primary entrance gallery.
French police stroll close to the glass Pyramid of the Louvre Museum because the museum stays closed the day after a jewel heist by thieves who broke into the landmark through the use of a crane and smashing an upstairs window, stealing priceless jewellery from an space that homes the French Crown Jewels earlier than escaping on motorbikes, in Paris, France, Oct. 20, 2025.
Benoit Tessier/REUTERS
Carol Fuchs, an aged vacationer from the US, had been standing in line for greater than three-quarters of an hour.
“The audacity, coming through a window. I feel so sorry for whoever was on guard in that room,” she instructed AFP after the thieves escaped with prize jewels from the museum’s Apollo Gallery on Sunday.
“Will they ever be found? I doubt it. I think it’s long gone,” she mentioned.
Thieves carried out the brazen daytime heist on Sunday morning. They broke into the enduring landmark utilizing crane-type elevate to power open a window earlier than smashing by means of show instances and making off with jewellery of “inestimable value,” in accordance with France’s inside minister and the museum mentioned. They escaped on bikes or scooters, officers mentioned.
The theft hit The Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon, a vaulted corridor that shows among the French Crown Jewels beneath a ceiling painted by King Louis XIV’s court docket artist, the ministry mentioned.
All of it occurred in broad daylight, with vacationers contained in the world’s most visited museum. There have been no accidents reported.
French Tradition Minister Rachida Dati known as the theft the work of “professionals,” describing it on the TF1 TV community as “a four-minute operation carried out without violence.”
She requested artwork historian David Chanteranne, who has labored within the Louvre, if the glass within the show instances holding the jewels would have been strengthened in some way?
“Incredibly it wasn’t,” he mentioned, explaining that for the needs of “historical accuracy,” the Louvre had used the unique instances to show the crown jewels, together with glass from Napoleon’s time, two centuries in the past.
