The dazzling Louvre gallery, which was the target of a daring robbery in October, reopened to the public this Wednesday, becoming a new attraction for tourists despite its most valuable exhibits having been removed.
The Galerie d’Apollon, one of the most sumptuous rooms in the world’s most visited museum, was previously known for exhibiting the French crown jewels.
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But after eight pieces valued at some $100 million were stolen during a daylight heist last year, it became world-famous as the scene of one of the most audacious—and embarrassing—robberies in recent times.
“For me, it’s an honor to be here on the first day, in the morning,” Jenny Lee, a 34-year-old guide for Korean tourists, told AFP.
The robbery is “a new story for the Galerie d’Apollon.”
“It’s beautiful, just as I remember it. I think I prefer it empty, without the jewels,” Alison Leslie, a 52-year-old former Scottish police officer, told AFP.
Although the four alleged Louvre thieves have been arrested, the stolen objects have not yet been found, despite exhaustive searches by French investigators in the Paris region and exchanges with police in Belgium, Italy, and other countries.
The remaining jewels have been removed from the Galerie d’Apollon and will be exhibited in the future in a secure, windowless room.
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The thieves used a crane mounted on a truck to access a balcony of the gallery, before cutting through windows and display cases with powerful disc saws.
The gallery’s security vulnerabilities, which could be accessed by a balcony from a car street, had already been pointed out in a 2019 audit commissioned by the museum, but the findings were never implemented.
The robbery stunned the world, embarrassed France, and brought to light a series of security failures, including the museum’s outdated video surveillance system.
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It also triggered an internal crisis, leading to employee protests and the resignation of the museum’s president, Laurence des Cars, who was replaced in February by Christophe Leribault, an art historian who previously directed the Palace of Versailles.
The four men suspected of robbing the Louvre were arrested by police in the following weeks, all of them from the Paris region and with criminal records ranging from theft to pimping.
The Louvre, where the Mona Lisa is exhibited, received around nine million visitors last year, well above its planned capacity, which has led to overcrowding problems.
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