The director of the Louvre museum in Paris has acknowledged a 'terrible failure' days after thieves took seven minutes to break in via a window and steal jewels worth €88m, admitting there was 'highly insufficient' security camera coverage of the outside walls of the vast building.
Senators questioned Laurence des Cars about the spectacular heist in which four men used a truck with extendable ladder and furniture hoist to access a balcony, cut through a window and steal jewels from the ornate Apollo gallery during opening hours. 'The whole world is shocked and we really don't need this in France right now', said Jacques Grosperrin, a senator from the rightwing Les Républicains party, adding that the international media was laughing at France.
Des Cars, speaking publicly for the first time since the break-in, said: 'Despite our efforts, despite our hard work on a daily basis, we failed.' She said all alarms had functioned during the burglary, but admitted that security cameras did not adequately cover the thieves' point of entry. 'The only camera installed is directed westward and therefore did not cover the balcony involved in the break-in,' she said. 'There are some perimeter cameras, but they are ageing,' she conceded, adding that surveillance of the museum's outside walls was 'highly insufficient'.
Senators asked how a truck with an extendable ladder and furniture hoist could have parked in the wrong direction of traffic on a pavement right up against the wall of museum for two hours, on a busy main road near the Seine River, in what would have required a U-turn and been a parking offence. Des Cars went over the events of the robbery, describing how the robbers had put out bollards on the pavement as if they were carrying out maintenance work. She said that as soon as they broke a window and entered the museum, the alarm systems went off and the security protocol was followed. But the thieves exited the museum within minutes.
Des Cars said she had tendered her resignation on Sunday after the burglary, but the culture minister, Rachida Dati, had refused it. She defended the museum's €80m security plan, disputing a recent report that cited 'persistent delays'. She said security camera coverage was being increased across the museum's 37-hectare site in the middle of Paris, whose extensive collections include ancient Egyptian relics and the world's most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa. She said a police post must now be set up inside the museum.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, had earlier ordered the speeding up of security measures at the Louvre.
