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PARIS: Paris police acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre’s defenses on Wednesday — turning this month’s dazzling daylight theft into a national reckoning over how France protects its treasures.
Paris Police Chief Patrice Faure told Senate lawmakers that aging systems and slow-moving fixes left weak seams in the world’s most-visited museum.
“A technological step has not been taken,” he told lawmakers, noting parts of the video network are even still analog, producing lower-quality images that are slow to share in real time.
A long-promised revamp — a $93 million project requiring roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) of new cabling — “will not be finished before 2029–2030,” he said.
Faure also disclosed that the Louvre’s authorization to operate its security cameras quietly expired in July and wasn’t renewed — a paperwork lapse that some see as a symbol of broader negligence after thieves forced a window to the Apollo Gallery, cut into cases with power tools and fled with eight pieces of the French crown jewels within minutes while tourists were inside.
“Officers arrived extremely fast,” Faure said, but he added the lag occurred earlier in the chain — from first detection, to museum security, to the emergency line, to police command.
Faure and his team said the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s alarms but from a cyclist outside who dialed the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift.
Suspects’ custody expiring
Officials say two suspects were arrested over the weekend, including one stopped at Charles-de-Gaulle Airport as he tried to leave France. Under French rules for organized theft, custody can run up to 96 hours; that limit expires late Wednesday, when prosecutors must charge the suspects, release them, or seek a judge’s extension. The Louvre values the eight stolen pieces at about $102 million. None has been confirmed recovered.
The theft has also exposed an insurance blind spot: officials say the jewels were not privately insured. The French state self-insures its national museums, because premiums for covering priceless heritage are astronomically high — meaning the Louvre will receive no payout for the loss. The financial blow, like the cultural wound, is total.
Faure pushed back on quick fixes. He rejected calls for a permanent police post inside the palace-museum, warning it would set an unworkable precedent and do little against fast, mobile crews. “I am firmly opposed,” he said. “The issue is not a guard at a door; it is speeding the chain of alert.”
He urged lawmakers to authorize tools currently off-limits: AI-based anomaly detection and object tracking (not facial recognition) to flag suspicious movements and follow scooters or gear across city cameras in real time.
The Oct. 19 heist was swift and simple. In the morning rush, thieves reached the jewel gallery near streetside windows, cut through reinforced cases and vanished in minutes. Former bank robber David Desclos told the AP the operation was textbook and vulnerabilities were glaringly obvious in the layout of the gallery.
Museum and culture officials under pressure
Culture Minister Rachida Dati, under pressure, has stayed defensive — refusing the Louvre director’s resignation and insisting alarms worked while acknowledging “security gaps did exist.” She has kept details to a minimum, citing ongoing investigations.
The reckoning lands at a museum already under strain. In June, the Louvre shut in a spontaneous staff strike — including security agents — over unmanageable crowds, chronic understaffing and “untenable” conditions. Unions say mass tourism and construction pinch points create blind spots, a vulnerability underscored by thieves who rolled a basket lift to the Seine-facing façade and reached a hall displaying the crown jewels.
Faure said police will now track surveillance-permit deadlines across institutions to prevent repeats of the July lapse. But he stressed the larger fix is disruptive and slow: ripping out and rebuilding core systems while the palace stays open, and updating the law so police can act on suspicious movement in real time — before a scooter disappears into Paris traffic and diamonds into history.
For Desclos, the practical answer is unsentimental: vault the originals and display perfect replicas. Romance aside, he argues, the point is that the real objects survive.
Experts fear the stolen pieces may already be broken down and stones recut to erase their past — a prospect that adds urgency to France’s debate over how it guards what the world comes to see.