Paris. Black jacket over a white shirt, assertive tone but full of emotion, clear and precise verbs, the president and director of the Louvre stepped up to the plate four days after the spectacular robbery of the Louvre by answering the senators’ questions. Indignation was strong the day after the theft which made the headlines of the media around the world, to deplore “the disastrous image” that this inability to protect the Crown jewels was a sad reflection. Several political voices were raised to question the Minister of Culture and beyond Emmanuel Macron who made the Louvre a strong symbol of his mandates.
At the center of the debate: has the Louvre failed in its mission to protect the works entrusted to it? But by maintaining a certain confusion between the security flaws of the Apollo gallery on the one hand and the security master plans of the Louvre on the other, those who spoke on the subject in the media or in the Senate have confused the reading of the file.
Regarding the theft in the gallery, it appears from the hearing of Laurence des Cars that the alarms in the window and display cases worked well, and that the agents’ instructions which consist of notifying the police and sheltering the rare visitors present at this early hour were respected. However, she admitted” weakness “ important, the absence of a surveillance camera outside which could have alerted to the incongruous parking of the freight elevator. In the media, people questioned the usefulness of the four guards without a deterrent role, emphasizing that the agents of the private company Securitas had been able to prevent the thieves from setting fire to the basket.
These faults or weaknesses – it depends – in the specific system required by the Apollo gallery, taking into account the particular objects that they exhibit, could have been identified very easily since the installation of the jewels… in 1887. Especially since a similar theft had taken place in the same place in 1976 (we still have not found Charles X’s ceremonial sword full of diamonds) and the gallery had been restored between 2001 and 2004. No need for a vast, lengthy and costly security master plan where simple common sense is enough.
Several security master plans
A deliberate leak of the preliminary report of the Court of Auditors on the Louvre has also focused the debate on delays in security plans. We will have to wait for its publication to assess the efforts of the various directors of the Louvre in this area. The theft of the Corot in 1998 was a warning shot leading to a census of the works and display cases to be protected as a priority. It was then decided to put metal frames at the back of the paintings to prevent them from being unframed from behind, to place paintings smaller than 1 mx 1 m under glass, and to replace the fixing screws with more solid means.
The previous director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, initiated a strategic security plan in 2018, including the grouping of various security PCs in a single location and a wider deployment of cameras. How big was this plan? Has it been launched and funded? Was there no plan as his successor suggests? The report from the Court of Auditors will say so. The fact remains that a few months after her arrival, the new director carried out a large audit of the museum’s security, followed by a plan including the grouping of security PCs, the installation of new cameras and, above all, the upgrading of the cabling to transport the signal from the cameras. The audit lasted three years, from 2022 to 2024 and the call for tenders was published at the end of December 2024. Is three years a long time? This seems long in itself, but not reprehensible given the other security issues: fire, attack, violent demonstrations, flooding. The main call for tenders set a response deadline of January 30, 2025 and implementation in September. During the Senate hearing, we understood that given the complexity of the file, it was going to take a little more time. The Louvre also indicated that the order of priorities was going to be modified and that the Denon wing and the Apollon gallery were at the top of the areas to be equipped, which was not the case in the initial call for tenders and clearly shows the blind spot that this gallery constitutes.
Laurence des Cars reiterated the request made many times from Pierre Rosenberg and the Grand Louvre for a police station within the museum grounds. What the new Minister of the Interior Laurent Nunez opposed, declaring in the Tribune Sunday : “If we start with the Louvre, we will put them everywhere. The current police station is right next to the Louvre. As soon as there was the alert, within three minutes, the police were there.” And to add that a police station within the museum “wouldn’t have changed anything. It is the most gridded area of Paris. On the square, there are lots of people of ours”. But not on the street which runs alongside the Apollon gallery.
