Thieves Steal ‘Priceless’ Crown Jewels in Daring Daylight Heist at the Louvre

Armed thieves staged a dramatic daylight robbery at the Louvre Museum on Sunday, stealing eight “priceless” pieces of French crown jewellery — including an emerald-and-diamond necklace given by Napoleon to Empress Marie Louise — in a heist that lasted just seven minutes.

The robbers, armed with angle grinders, stormed the museum’s Apollo Gallery, smashed two high-security display cases, and fled on scooters after dropping one gem-encrusted crown in their escape, officials said.

President Emmanuel Macron vowed that “everything is being done” to track down the thieves and recover the treasures, calling the robbery a “national humiliation.”

“Everything is being done, everywhere, to achieve this, under the leadership of the Paris prosecutor’s office,” Macron said on social media.

The culture ministry confirmed that among the stolen pieces were jewellery belonging to Marie Louise, Queen Marie Amelie, and Queen Hortense, as well as a pair of emerald earrings and other rare items of 19th-century French heritage.

The crown of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III — adorned with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds — was recovered after the thieves dropped it while fleeing, the ministry added.

Paris chief prosecutor Laure Beccuau said four suspects are being sought. A team of 60 investigators is on the case, and the museum remains closed “to preserve traces and clues.”

Witnesses described a lightning-fast operation.

“They used a furniture hoist to reach the window — it took 30 seconds,” said Samir, a cyclist who saw the robbery. “Then they escaped on scooters.”

The heist occurred shortly after 9:30 a.m., just half an hour after the Louvre opened to visitors. Evacuated tourists described chaos around the museum’s iconic glass pyramid entrance.

“It was like a Hollywood movie,” said American visitor Talia Ocampo. “We couldn’t go in because there was a robbery — it was crazy.”

The theft, just 800 metres from Paris police headquarters, comes amid growing concern over museum security in France. Recent months have seen robberies at Paris’s Natural History Museum, where gold samples worth €600,000 were stolen, and at a museum in Limoges, where thieves took artefacts valued at €6.5 million.

New Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, a former Paris police chief, acknowledged France’s “great vulnerability” in protecting its cultural institutions.

The Louvre — once home to French kings before Louis XIV moved to Versailles — welcomes around nine million visitors a year, making it the world’s most-visited museum.

Macron said the Louvre’s ongoing redesign project, announced in January, would include reinforced security measures, now likely to be accelerated after the audacious heist.