Just seven minutes, a historic robbery in the largest museum in the world and nitroglycerin on the political scene. Last Sunday morning, a handful of thieves managed to steal jewels worth 88 million euros from the Apollo gallery of the Louvre Museum. Including a necklace set with 1,198 diamonds, a sapphire set or the sumptuous crown of Empress Eugenie, finally abandoned by the thugs in their escape.
“We are in the middle of a cinematographic scenario, a series. We think of Arsène Lupine, of Belphégor. As far as I know, a story like this has only happened in fiction,” says Ariel Weil, PS mayor of the central districts of Paris.
The robbery appears to have taken place with disconcerting ease. Two scooters and a forklift to access a museum window from the street were enough to violate the temple of French heritage.
“This morning a robbery occurred at the opening of the Louvre Museum. There are no injuries to report. I am at the scene together with the museum teams and the police. Observations are ongoing,” Rachida Dati announces on X an hour after the events. It’s amazing.
“An unbearable humiliation”
Shaken by weeks of instability, the political class seemed stunned for a few hours, including the head of state. Didn’t Emmanuel Macron celebrate his victory in 2017 in front of the Louvre pyramid, crossing the museum courtyard alone, saying that “the whole world” was “watching” us? The planet is looking at us again…
The Elysée assured early on Sunday afternoon that the President of the Republic is in “very close contact” with the Minister of the Interior and Rachida Dati.
But for the sacred union, as during the Notre-Dame fire in 2019 that plunged the country into a stupor, it was a failure. After a sober intervention by Rachida Dati on the TF1 news, the first attacks did not take long to arrive. This theft is “an unbearable humiliation for our country. How far will the disintegration of the State go?” asks the president of RN, Jordan Bardella, about X. Marine Le Pen speaks of a “wound in the French soul.”
Shortly after 8:00 p.m., Emmanuel Macron reacted
“When we are attacked, the first response is to be united” and not to “provoke controversies,” insists former president and socialist deputy François Hollande, on BFMTV. It is clear that not everyone hears this call to remain calm.
Louvre security under scrutiny by the Court of Auditors
“Frankly, this matter is a blessing for all those who have the impression that we no longer control the country. We really give the impression of nickel-plated feet,” said a pillar of the central bloc in the National Assembly, “saddened.”
Last January, the president launched with great fanfare a “cololossal” plan to restore and expand the Louvre. With his back to the Mona Lisa, Emmanuel Macron had promised before the cameras “a new renaissance” for the museum.
Another entrance, at the height of the Perrault colonnade, to alleviate the congestion of the Pyramid, an increase in prices for foreigners from outside the EU, respect for environmental standards and, above all, an improvement in safety standards… The work to protect the works would last ten years and would cost between 300 and 400 million euros.
“Almost a year later, nothing has advanced. We have the impression that Emmanuel Macron wanted to advance on many things and not only on security, which should have been a priority. All this is not really serious,” criticizes Senator LR Catherine Dumas, heritage specialist.
In reality, it is Rachida Dati who concentrates most of the attacks. In both the Assembly and the Senate, during the current interrogations of the government, the Minister of Culture, in office for almost two years, is the subject of criticism from parliamentarians.
Who was officially invested by LR a few weeks before to be its candidate in Paris for the next municipal elections, assures: “The Louvre’s security system worked.” Comments that clash with a preliminary report from the Court of Auditors leaked to the press. Which, still incomplete, since the museum has not responded, points to a “persistent” and “considerable” delay in the Louvre’s security equipment.
The tenant of Rue de Valois will explain it next week before the Senate Cultural Affairs Committee, a few days after the hearing of the museum owner Laurence des Cars. The president and director of the institution recognized this Wednesday “a failure” “despite the efforts, despite the hard day-to-day work.”
In the ranks of Rachida Dati’s opponents, reproaches are increasing, sometimes in an ironic tone. “Frankly, we can wonder what the robbery would have happened if the warning systems had not worked,” says communist senator Ian Brossat, former deputy of Anne Hidalgo, candidate for the capital’s municipal elections. The battle of Paris has begun.
More generally, the Louvre robbery comes at a particular political moment for the Parisian elected official. Three days after the robbery, she was suspended from her party for remaining in government despite LR’s instructions.
And the presidential side is slow to announce its support. In macro snow, the party led by Gabriel Attal should ultimately support Pierre-Yves Bournazel, Édouard Philippe’s candidate, considered less divisive. “A municipal election in Paris is the meeting of a personality with the Parisians,” says one of her closest friends, Paris councilor Nelly Garnier.
Is “the Dati brand,” as one of his collaborators describes it, powerful enough to make the Louvre robbery forgotten? “People forget quickly. When we vote for the municipal elections, we will be more than five months after this matter,” observes for her part the mayor of the 8th of LR, Jeanne d’Hauteserre. “And at the Louvre, her responsibility is to shed light on what happened and ensure that it is no longer possible. She acted in this sense,” says Nelly Garnier.
Anne Hidalgo, great mute
Another collateral victim of the museum robbery: the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. Relatively discreet since the Olympic Games, the councilor has not officially commented on the issue, except for a post on Instagram. Which makes us wonder whether we should see a link between the end of his term in four months and his candidacy for the position of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
If her silence was not really noticed, that did not stop her opponent Rachida Dati from attacking her directly. In fact, the Minister of Culture has pointed out on several occasions the lack of “implementation of video protection in public spaces”, a prerogative “for which the mayor of Paris is responsible (but) which is neither the priority nor the will.”
That was all it took to restart the long-distance fight between the two women. In a press release, the Parisian municipality reacts to what it describes as the “False statements by the Minister of Culture”.
“The security of national cultural establishments, including video surveillance, depends directly on State services. The video protection plan of the Paris police headquarters, as its name suggests, is under the jurisdiction of the prefecture. It guarantees its operation and maintenance and, therefore, governance with regard to the implementation plan,” replies the city of Paris. And specify that the François Mitterrand quay, where the four criminals parked aboard a forklift before boarding a basket towards the Apollon gallery “is an axis on which the police headquarters issues binding prescriptions for the city of Paris.”
Beyond these confrontations, security failures persist, recognized by the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, in France Inter, who believes that the robbery at the Louvre reflects “a very negative image of France.”
Source: BFM TV
