Woman, 38, and man, 37, had been arrested on Wednesday in relation to theft of £76m worth of jewellery in Paris
Two more suspects, a man and a woman arrested this week over the jewel heist at the Louvre, have been charged and remanded in custody, prosecutors have said.
The charges on Saturday brought to four the number of people now charged over the spectacular robbery.
Continue reading...Public prosecutor says arrests were made in and around Paris but suspects ‘did not help us find the stolen goods’
Five new suspects have been arrested in connection with the Louvre robbery in Paris, in which thieves stole crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m), the city’s public prosecutor has said, but the gems remain missing.
Laure Beccuau told RTL radio on Thursday the arrests had been made on Wednesday night in the French capital and the surrounding area, particularly the neighbouring Seine-Saint-Denis department. But they “did not help us find the stolen goods”, she added.
Continue reading...French investigators are analysing DNA samples and fingerprints on tools and other items found on the scene
French investigators are analysing more than 150 DNA samples, fingerprints and other traces from tools and safety gear left by the thieves who broke into the Louvre museum and escaped with crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m).
Five days after the brazen heist from the world’s most-visited museum, Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said she had “a small hope” the jewels could still be recovered and was “optimistic” about the investigation’s outcome.
Continue reading...Footage showing two men appears to have been filmed from nearby window in museum
The slow-motion getaway of two thieves from the Louvre clutching €88m (£76m) of France’s crown jewels was captured on video, it has emerged – the latest dramatic twist to the country’s most spectacular heist in decades.
The 36-second clip, which Le Parisien newspaper said it had verified, shows two men dressed in black, one wearing a yellow hi-vis vest and the other a motorcycle helmet, slowly descending on a furniture lift from the museum’s Apollo gallery.
Continue reading...Laurence des Cars questioned by senators about daring daytime break-in at Paris museum
The director of the Louvre museum in Paris has acknowledged a “terrible failure” days after thieves took seven minutes to break in via a window and steal jewels worth €88m, admitting there was “highly insufficient” security camera coverage of the outside walls of the vast building.
Senators questioned Laurence des Cars about the spectacular heist in which four men used a truck with extendable ladder and furniture hoist to access a balcony, cut through a window and steal jewels from the ornate Apollo gallery during opening hours.
Continue reading...Police continue to search for the criminal gang behind the brazen robbery targeting France’s crown jewels
The financial loss from France’s most dramatic heist in decades has been put at nearly €90m as the head of the Louvre prepared to face difficult questions over how thieves were able to steal priceless jewellery in broad daylight.
As police continued to search for the criminal gang behind the brazen robbery on Sunday, the Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told the broadcaster RTL that the museum’s curator had estimated the losses at about €88m (£76m).
Continue reading...Former president organised stage-managed departure from his Paris home before becoming first French postwar leader to be jailed
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been jailed in Paris, after a court sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
France’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012 is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to go behind bars.
Continue reading...Former French president will reportedly be held in isolation and has a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo for company
Perhaps France’s most fabled jail, La Santé – where the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has begun a five-year term for criminal conspiracy to raise campaign funds from Libya – is the last remaining prison inside the Paris city limits.
Located in the southern Montparnasse district of the capital, it opened in 1867 and was the scene of at least 40 executions, the last in 1972. Partially closed for renovation in 2014, the prison reopened five years later and houses more than 1,100 inmates.
Continue reading...The tornado killed one construction worker on a building site, injured 10 others and left four in critical condition
A tornado tore through districts north of Paris on Monday, toppling three construction cranes that killed one person and left four others with critical injuries, authorities said.
The town of Ermont, about 20km (13 miles) north-east of Paris was worst hit by the sudden twister that caused damage across about 10 districts.
Continue reading...Justice minister says ‘we have failed’ after thieves take seven minutes to steal priceless jewels from museum
The French government is under increasing pressure over museum security as police continued to search for thieves who took seven minutes to steal priceless jewels from the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum.
“What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of Paris, get people up it in several minutes to grab priceless jewels, and give France a terrible image,” the justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, told France Inter radio on Monday.
Continue reading...Necklace given by Napoleon to his wife among items taken from Paris museum in highly professional daylight robbery
French police are hunting four thieves who carried out a highly professional daylight robbery on the Louvre, breaking into one of the museum’s most ornate rooms and escaping with eight pieces of “priceless” historic jewellery, including a necklace given by Napoleon to his wife.
The world’s most-visited museum was suddenly closed for the day on Sunday after the break-in targeted pieces in two glass cases in its Apollon gallery, where the French crown jewels are held.
Continue reading...Former French president set to start five-year sentence for scheme to obtain campaign funds from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime
The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will go to prison on Tuesday after a court sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Sarkozy, who was the rightwing president of France between 2007 and 2012, will become the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to be jailed.
Continue reading...Spiritual home of Audrey Hepburn re-establishes itself as serious player in red carpet dressing
On the very same day as Taylor Swift, Sarah Burton entered her Showgirl era. For her second outing as Givenchy designer, Burton turned up the volume with collars dripping rhinestones over collarbones, luscious peach maribou feathers, a pocket-rocket cocktail dress in lipstick red leather, and Naomi Campbell in a tuxedo jacket worn open over a barely-there lace trim bra.
Burton has been at Givenchy less than a year, but Alexander McQueen’s long-term right-hand woman has already established a new identity for the house and for herself. Givenchy, the spiritual home of Audrey Hepburn and the little black dress, has an immaculate bloodline of glamour that runs from Paris to Hollywood, but it is a relative minnow as a business. Her recent predecessors had mostly leaned into streetwear and utility-coded metallic accents, but Burton is bringing back the glamour.
Continue reading...Some Nightjet services suspended from mid-December after French withdrawal amid public budget crisis
Night train services linking Paris, Berlin and Vienna are to end from mid-December because of the French government’s withdrawal of funding, the Austrian national rail operator has said, in a blow to sleeper travel on important European routes.
ÖBB, the largest provider of such trains in Europe, has led a drive to revive a once popular form of low-emission transport as an alternative to flying.
Continue reading...Portrait of Dora Maar completed in Paris during war had been in private collection since being bought in 1944
A newly discovered painting by Pablo Picasso of the French photographer and painter Dora Maar completed during the German occupation of Paris that has not been seen for 80 years, has been unveiled.
The work, Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat (Dora Maar), was finished towards the end of the couple’s turbulent nine-year relationship and shows Maar in a softer, more colourful light than Picasso’s previous portraits of his then lover.
Continue reading...Campaigners call for Paris-style parking charges amid fears big vehicles are taking up excessive public space
The number of giant cars in England’s cities has increased tenfold in recent years, according to researchers, who warn the vehicles are taking up excessive public space and posing a threat to public safety.
Analysis published by Clean Cities has found SUVs have gone from 3% to 30% of existing cars in the past two decades. In London, the number of SUVs has increased from about 80,000 in 2002 to about 800,000 in 2023.
Continue reading...Database of 8m handwritten census entries paints portrait of city that was hub for intellectuals, artists and young, single people
In 1926, James Joyce was working on his novel Finnegans Wake while living in a spacious apartment in the 7th arrondissement of Paris with his partner, Nora Barnacle, and their two adult children, Giorgio and Lucia.
Joyce’s neighbours in the elegant stone building at 2 Square de Robiac included a Syrian family whose three children had an English nanny called Jessie, Russian émigrés, an Egyptian industrialist, and the US writers William and Elizabeth Placida Mahl.
Continue reading...Cabaret venue marks restoration of red-painted windmill with 90-strong troupe performing signature can-can dance
The sails of the red-painted windmill on top of the Moulin Rouge, the most celebrated cabaret in Paris, have begun turning again, restoring the home of French can-can to its full glory more than a year after they tumbled inelegantly to the ground.
In a profusion of red feathers, members of the Montmartre institution’s 90-strong troupe performed its signature dance on the road outside to mark the occasion on Thursday night, after the second of two daily performances that draw 600,000 visitors a year.
Continue reading...About 1,000 swimmers a day will be allowed to use three bathing sites after €1.4bn clean-up programme
Parisians and tourists flocked to take a dip in the Seine River this weekend after city authorities gave the green light for it to be used for public swimming for the first time in more than a century.
The opening followed a comprehensive clean-up programme sped up by its use as a venue in last year’s Paris Olympics after people who regularly swam in it illegally lobbied for its transformation. The outgoing mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, also helped to champion the plans, jumping in the river herself before the Olympics.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Actor talks of difficulties of getting ‘art film’ made about tortured artist, played by Riccardo Scamarcio
He is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, having made his name in the 1970s gangster classic The Godfather. Yet, despite his fame and Oscars recognition, Al Pacino struggled for 30 years to make a movie about one of the 20th century’s greatest artists because “art films” are “always difficult to get off the ground”.
He refused to give up on a drama about Amedeo Modigliani, a tortured genius who faced repeated rejection before his life was cut short in 1920 by tubercular meningitis, aged 35.
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