Louvre Museum director resigns in the wake of October's brazen French crown jewels heist

PARIS (AP) — The Louvre Museum's manager resigned Tuesday aft months of unit pursuing the October theft of the French crown jewels, arsenic the world's astir visited depository faced widening scrutiny implicit information failures, labour unrest and a suspected summons fraud scheme.

Laurence des Cars discontinue aft a punishing twelvemonth for the erstwhile royal palace — the high-profile jewels heist from the Apollo Gallery, a mid-February burst tube adjacent the “Mona Lisa,” h2o leaks damaging priceless books, unit walkouts and a wildcat onslaught implicit overcrowding and understaffing.

The landmark has faced a communicative of an instauration spiraling retired of control.

And that unit deepened successful caller weeks erstwhile French authorities revealed a suspected decadelong summons fraud cognition linked to the depository that investigators accidental whitethorn person outgo the Louvre 10 cardinal euros ($11.8 million).

President Emmanuel Macron accepted des Cars’ resignation arsenic “an enactment of responsibility” astatine a infinitesimal erstwhile the Louvre needs “calm” and caller momentum for information upgrades, modernization and different large projects, according to a connection from his office.

Macron wants to springiness des Cars a caller ngo during France’s presidency of the Group of Seven starring industrialized nations, focused connected practice among large museums, the connection said.

For galore successful France’s taste world, the resignation answers months of head-scratching implicit wherefore nary apical authoritative had fallen aft the heist: a daylight robbery that galore successful the state saw arsenic the astir humiliating breach of French practice information successful surviving memory.

It besides came arsenic lawmakers and taste officials widened scrutiny of the museum’s enactment and information practices successful the months since the breach.

Brazen theft

Thieves took little than 8 minutes successful October to bargain crown jewels valued astatine 88 cardinal euros ($102 million) from the Louvre, successful a play cognition that stunned visitors, exposed glaring vulnerabilities and near 1 of France's astir symbolically charged collections successful transgression hands.

Several suspects were aboriginal arrested, but the stolen pieces stay missing.

Des Cars, 1 of the astir salient depository directors successful Europe, had offered to resign connected the time of the robbery, but it was initially refused by the civilization minister.

In remarks aft the theft, she described the infinitesimal arsenic a “tragic, brutal, convulsive reality” for the Louvre and said that, arsenic the idiosyncratic successful charge, it had felt close to connection her resignation.

Lightning rod

In an interrogation published connected Tuesday by regular paper Le Figaro, des Cars said that she had tried to steer the Louvre done the fallout from the heist, but had concluded that she could nary longer transportation retired the museum’s translation successful the existent organization climate.

Staying on, she said, would person meant managing the presumption quo erstwhile the depository inactive needs heavy reform.

“I was determination to instrumentality the lightning” arsenic depository director, she said.

Des Cars besides said that the October break-in exposed problems that she had been informing astir since taking office, including aging infrastructure, obsolete method systems and terrible congestion.

She had led the Louvre since 2021, taking implicit 1 of the depository world’s astir prestigious jobs arsenic the instauration emerged from the coronavirus pandemic and wide tourism returned.

Multifaceted crisis

In June, a wildcat onslaught by front-of-house unit and information workers forced the Louvre to halt operations, stranding thousands of visitors extracurricular the solid pyramid and underscoring the extent of choler among employees implicit overcrowding, understaffing and what unions called untenable moving conditions.

Workers said that the unit of regular visitant flows — peculiarly astir the “Mona Lisa” — had go unmanageable and that promised reforms were arriving excessively slowly. There were increasing complaints that the infrastructure and staffing of the crumbling medieval operation haven’t kept gait with the crowds pouring done its galleries.

The resignation came astatine an particularly punishing moment, little than 2 weeks aft French authorities revealed the abstracted summons fraud scheme.

That lawsuit widened scrutiny beyond the jewels robbery and toward the museum’s day-to-day controls.

Fraud scheme

Prosecutors accidental circuit guides are suspected of — up to 20 times a time — reusing the aforesaid tickets to bring successful antithetic visitant groups, astatine times allegedly with the assistance of Louvre employees, successful a strategy investigators judge operated for a decade.

In a uncommon interrogation conscionable days agone with The Associated Press aft the fraud lawsuit was made public, the Louvre's No. 2, wide head Kim Pham, said that fraud astatine an instauration the size of the Louvre was “statistically inevitable.”

He argued that the museum’s sheer standard — millions of visitors, aggregate checkpoints and a sprawling historical analyzable — makes it uniquely exposed.

But helium besides acknowledged shortcomings, and said that the depository had tightened validation checks and accrued controls.

New Renaissance

The succession of crises has enactment caller governmental value connected a task Macron has heavy championed: the Louvre’s sweeping overhaul plan, branded the “Louvre New Renaissance.”

Unveiled by Macron successful January 2025, the renovation, which could instrumentality up to a decades, aims to modernize a depository wide seen arsenic overstretched and physically worn down by wide tourism.

The program includes a caller entranceway adjacent the Seine River to easiness unit connected I.M. Pei’s pyramid, caller underground spaces and a dedicated country for the “Mona Lisa” with timed entree — each intended to amended assemblage travel and trim the regular crush that has go a awesome of the Louvre’s occurrence and its dysfunction.

The task is expected to outgo astir 700 million-800 cardinal euros ($826 million-$944 million), with backing from summons revenue, authorities support, donations and Louvre Abu Dhabi-related income.

The standard and outgo of that program present loom implicit the hunt for des Cars’ successor.

Macron has framed the overhaul arsenic a nationalist priority, comparing its ambition to different landmark French restoration efforts and casting it arsenic portion of a broader defence of French taste prestige.

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