Louvre Museum director resigns amid heist, ticket fraud scandals

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French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday accepted the resignation of the top of Paris's Louvre Museum, which has been grappling with the fallout from a high-profile jewel heist and rolling strikes.

Laurence des Vehicles tendered her resignation, which Macron accepted, "praising an act of accountability at a time when the world's largest museum wants calm and a robust new impetus to efficiently perform main initiatives involving safety, and modernization," his workplace stated.

The Louvre has been roiled by a theft in October, when 4 burglars made off with jewels value about 87 million euros (about $140 million Cdn) in about eight minutes.

Des Vehicles acknowledged the "horrible failure," in testimony to a French legislative committee days later and supplied to resign, however the supply was refused on the time by France's tradition minister.

Since then, the museum has been hit by extra woes, and beleaguered workers angered by layoffs, pay and dealing situations have been conducting rolling strikes since December.

Ticket fraud scheme alleged Earlier this month, French police detained a number of folks as a part of an investigation right into a Louvre ticket fraud that will have price the world's most visited museum 10 million euros ($16.15 million Cdn) in revenues.

The investigation started because the Louvre flagged in December 2024 the presence of two Chinese language guides who had been suspected of getting teams of Chinese language vacationers into the museum reusing single-entry tickets for various folks. After greater than a yr of checks, police recognized a fully-fledged community that will have let in fraudulently as much as 20 teams of vacationers per day over a decade-long interval whereas bribing Louvre officers to show a blind eye.

The ring is suspected of getting invested the proceeds in actual property in France and Dubai, the Paris prosecutor's workplace stated.

WATCH | How the brazen heist in October was pulled off: How thieves pulled off a brazen crown jewel heist on the Louvre | About That

The Louvre is now the positioning of what some are calling the heist of the last decade. Andrew Chang breaks down how France's crown jewels had been stolen, and why the items could also be unimaginable to recuperate. Plus, how China gained the uncommon earths race towards the U.S.

Within the October theft, thieves made off with a complete of eight objects, together with a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to Nineteenth-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense. Additionally they stole an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte's second spouse, and a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie's diamond diadem and her giant corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of uncommon craftsmanship — had been additionally a part of the loot. One piece — Eugénie's emerald-set imperial crown, with greater than 1,300 diamonds — was later discovered outdoors the museum, broken however recoverable.

Officers later stated the robbers used disc cutters meant for concrete to chop by means of the show instances.

The theft highlighted the very fact the museum has been tormented by safety shortgaps, a difficulty it was within the midst of addressing. In late November, Des Vehicles introduced the primary batch of a deliberate 100 surveillance cameras which are to be put in by the top of 2026.

The museum has additionally been hit by a pair of water leaks inside three months. A Nineteenth-century portray was broken in a leak earlier this month, whereas between 300 and 400 works that included paperwork and journals had been broken in a November leak.