An iconic monument of French culture, the Louvre Museum embodies almost 9,000 years of history and houses more than 600,000 works of art in more than 70,000 square meters of gallery space. It is the most visited museum in the world, receiving around nine million visitors each year, far beyond the capacity for which it was originally designed. In recent years, the institution has been rocked by a series of crises, including major theft, fraud and labor tensions.
On October 19, 2025, the unthinkable happened: thieves entered the museum through a window in the Apollo Gallery and stole the French Crown Jewels, valued at around €88 million. The theft exposed serious security deficiencies within the institution.
Five months later, David Desclos returned to the scene. The former thief was invited to the Louvre in 2020 to record a podcast. Standing near the balcony used by the thieves, he expressed his frustration: “Bars have been installed on that one window, but when you look around, the place looks like Swiss cheese. There are no bars anywhere else, all the windows are accessible. That’s reckless.”
According to Desclos, the windows are not the only weak points of the Louvre. He also points out the so-called “sewer cats”, thieves capable of moving quickly across the roofs of Paris and who are practically impossible to catch. France 24 passed on its assessment to the police.
“You’re absolutely right,” says Axel Ronde, spokesman for the CFTC police union. “There are real commandos capable of deploying quickly and in large numbers. That is why some sensitive places have installed barbed wire along their roofs. But the Louvre is a listed monument, nothing can be added to it.”
Main structural problems
Louvre employees are also expressing concerns about aging infrastructure that goes far beyond security. “For years we have been warning about the obsolescence of the building and outdated technical systems. Security has been widely discussed since the theft, but the problem is much worse than that,” says Gary Guillot, secretary of the CGT union at the Louvre.
