The General Inspectorate for Cultural Affairs in France presented a harsh report to the French Senate on Wednesday, revealing serious security weaknesses that allowed the theft of historical jewelry from the Louvre Museum in October 2025, in an incident that shocked one of the world’s most important museums.
The report, presented by the head of the Inspectorate, Noël Corbin, stated that the museum’s management and the supervisory authority, the French Ministry of Culture, bear responsibility for “general failures” and accumulated negligence over the years, stressing that the ministry did not exercise its oversight as required.
Corbin did not exclude the Louvre’s management itself from criticism, noting that the current president, Laurence des Cars, and her predecessor, Jean-Luc Martinez, did not review sensitive audit reports on the museum’s security and its most valuable sections.
The report showed that all the necessary means to prevent theft were in place, but they remained “rigid and ineffective.” The monitoring room was described as cramped and limited in screens, hindering the ability of security personnel to accurately track the path of the thieves, despite their activation of theft protocols.
Corbin explained that the window used by the perpetrators to exit the Apollo Halls had been poorly secured since 2003, and its glass resisted breaking tools for only a few seconds. As for the jewelry protection cabinets, they withstood portable electric saws for only three minutes, equipment not anticipated in the “security scenarios” previously established.
More seriously, according to the report, the police did not receive appropriate instructions to apprehend the thieves immediately after their escape. Corbin stated: “If the thieves had been delayed by only thirty seconds, the operation would have been completely thwarted.”
In an incident that caused widespread outrage, the thieves stole jewelry worth an estimated $102 million in just seven minutes, including rare pieces belonging to the French imperial family, before leaving their tools behind and dropping the historical crown of Empress Eugenie.
This operation came weeks after another incident that revealed the deterioration of the museum’s infrastructure, where a water leak last month damaged between 300 and 400 books in the library of the Egyptian antiquities department.
French media also revealed that the surveillance camera system was protected by a password that cybersecurity reports described as “primitive and easy to crack.”
The report concluded that the security scenario related to the theft was not taken seriously, and that the risk of infiltration and burglary was underestimated, calling for external oversight of the museum’s security, which received 8.7 million visitors last year.
These findings contribute to increasing political and public pressure on the Louvre’s management and the French Ministry of Culture, at a time when investigations are continuing with the suspects, amid demands for a comprehensive restructuring of the protection system to preserve treasures whose loss would be an irreparable global loss.
