Louvre heist a ‘deafening wake-up call’, says auditor

Report says Paris museum prioritised ‘visible and attractive’ projects over security in run-up to robbery

The spectacular theft of an estimated €88m (£77m) of crown jewels from the Louvre last month was “a deafening wake-up call” for the “wholly inadequate pace” of security upgrades at the Paris museum, the head of France’s state auditor has said.

Presenting the report, which was completed before the dramatic heist at the world’s most-visited museum, Pierre Moscovici said the Louvre had sufficient funds for the improvements and “must now implement them without fail”.

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Louvre jewel heist by petty criminals, not organised professionals, says Paris prosecutor

Laure Beccuau said ‘upper echelons of organised crime’ unlikely to be involved as one perpetrator remains at large

The brazen daytime heist at the Louvre was carried out by petty criminals rather than professionals from the world of organised crime, the Paris prosecutor has said, describing two of the suspects as a couple with children.

The assertion comes two weeks after thieves parked a stolen truck outside the world’s most-visited museum, used a furniture lift to reach the first floor, then smashed their way into one of the museum’s most ornate rooms. Less than seven minutes later, they escaped on scooters with crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m).

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Two more suspects charged over Louvre heist taking total to four

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.

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Egypt’s vast $1bn museum to open in Cairo after two-decade build

Grand Egyptian Museum next to pyramids of Giza billed as world’s largest archaeological facility for single civilisation

A vast $1bn museum billed as the world’s largest archaeological facility dedicated to a single civilisation will open outside Cairo on Saturday, after countless delays over the course of its two-decade construction.

The Grand Egyptian Museum, located a mile away from the pyramids of Giza, covers an area of 470,000 sq metres. The complex was announced in 1992 but it was not until 2005 that construction began. Some areas of the museum opened in a soft launch in 2024.

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Five new suspects arrested in connection with Louvre robbery

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.

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Prosecutor has ‘small hope’ of recovering Louvre jewels thanks to gear left by thieves

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.

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Louvre thieves’ slow-motion getaway using furniture lift was caught on video

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.

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Louvre director acknowledges ‘terrible failure’ after €88m jewel heist

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.

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Louvre heist losses put at almost €90m as museum’s head prepares to face MPs

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).

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Louvre heist puts pressure on French government over museum security

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.

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Louvre heist: hunt on for thieves after eight ‘priceless’ jewellery pieces stolen

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.

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Bronze age gold jewellery stolen in raid on St Fagans museum in Cardiff

South Wales police issue public appeal for information after burglary at one of Wales’s most beloved museums

Raiders have broken into one of Wales’s most beloved museums and stolen gold jewellery from the bronze age.

Staff at St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff said its “Wales is …” gallery was specifically targeted in the burglary, which was discovered in the early hours of Monday.

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Precious gold samples stolen in raid on French natural history museum

Museum says specimens taken are worth €600,000 based on price of gold but have ‘immeasurable heritage value’

Historic gold samples with a street value of €600,000 but priceless to scientists and researchers have been stolen from the French national natural history museum in the latest of a series of museum robberies in France.

“This has happened in a critical context for cultural establishments in France, particularly museums,” the Paris museum said. “Several public collections have been the victims of robberies in the past months.”

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Bristol returns cultural artefacts taken from Larrakia people in Australia

Objects including three-metre spears were collected in late 19th and early 20th centuries and donated to city’s museum

For decades, they have languished in storage in the basement of a museum in the English West Country. Finally, an extraordinary collection of weapons and ceremonial objects taken from the Larrakia people more than a century ago is beginning a winding journey home to the saltwater landscapes of the Northern Territory in Australia.

During an emotionally charged ceremony, Bristol city council formally handed over 33 objects including spears that would have been used to hunt creatures from fish to buffalo, some still gleaming with the red ochre used to decorate them.

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Gun used in Emmett Till’s lynching is on display at museum 70 years later

Mississippi museum announces display on anniversary of boy’s murder, a pivotal moment in civil rights movement

The gun used in the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till is now on display for the public to see, 70 years after the killing.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History unveiled the .45-caliber pistol and its holster during a news conference on Thursday, which is the 70th anniversary of Till’s murder.

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‘City of singles’: cosmopolitan prewar Paris’s ‘crazy years’ brought to life

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.

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Fiddle-laden fake trailer reignites debate about Hollywood’s Irish stereotypes

Clip turned out to be a stunt, but strength of reaction speaks to genuine affront at Ireland’s portrayal on big screen

A man in a bar with a flat cap, bloodied knuckles and a dreamy look lays down his whiskey and writes a letter. “Dear Erin,” he begins, and a soundtrack of fiddles swells as he yearns for his lost love in the distant land of America.

The trailer for the upcoming film – tagline: “she was the Irish goodbye he never forgot” – ran in recent weeks in cinemas and online and was accompanied by a poster showing green mountains, shamrocks and a rainbow.

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Tourists damage crystal-covered chair in Italian museum by sitting on it

Palazzo Maffei in Verona contacts police after visitors cause Van Gogh’s Chair to buckle while posing for photos

An Italian museum has contacted the police after two clumsy tourists almost wrecked a work of art while posing for photos.

Video footage released by Palazzo Maffei in Verona showed the hapless pair photographing each other pretending to sit on a crystal-covered chair made by the artist Nicola Bolla – described by the museum as an “extremely fragile” work.

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Dutch museum to display 200-year-old condom probably made from sheep’s appendix

Rijksmuseum exhibition includes contraceptive featuring erotic etching of a nun and three clergymen

A 200-year-old illustrated condom will go on display with Dutch golden age masters in Amsterdam this week, after the 19th-century “luxury souvenir” became the first-ever contraceptive sheath to be added to the Rijksmuseum’s art collection.

The condom, which was probably made of a sheep’s appendix circa 1830, is thought to have come from an upmarket brothel in France, most likely in Paris. It features an erotic etching depicting a partially undressed nun pointing at the erect genitals of three clergymen, as well as the phrase Voila, mon choix (“There, that’s my choice”).

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Netherlands museum rethinks lending works to US amid Trump arts cuts

Mauritshuis in The Hague says guarantees would be needed of artworks’ safety amid uncertainty caused by US funding cuts

A leading museum in the Netherlands has said it is reconsidering lending works from its collection to museums in the US amid the uncertainty wreaked by Donald Trump’s funding cuts and ideological impositions.

Martine Gosselink, the director of the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, whose collection includes Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, said the turmoil had left her team wary of lending pieces to the US.

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