MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It took four men just seven minutes to break into the world's most visited art museum and steal millions of dollars' worth of jewels that once belonged to French royalty. The heist in a wing of the Louvre happened in broad daylight Sunday. In France, shock is turning to anger as people discover the lack of security. From Paris, NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Speaking French).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: BFM news aired a special report breaking down what happened Sunday morning at the Louvre. At 9:30 a.m., in a wing far from the crowds around the Mona Lisa, four men drove a moving truck onto the sidewalk, raised its extendible ladder and two climbed through an upper floor window into the antiques gallery.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Cellphone video taken by a visitor shows the back of one of the men wearing a yellow reflective vest and cutting into one of the glass cases with an electric saw. No one is around him or tries to stop him. The two men climbed back out the window where their accomplices were waiting on scooters. They zoomed away and have yet to be caught.
PIERRE-JEAN CHALENCON: The attack of the Louvre yesterday is a terrible, terrible shock for the French people because the Louvre museum is the best of the best, the museum of the museum.
BEARDSLEY: That's Pierre-Jean Chalencon, one of the top Napoleonic era collectors in France. The thieves got away with tiaras, crowns, earrings and necklaces from the 19th century, the time of Emperor Napoleon III, who was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. In dollar terms, the booty is worth hundreds of millions, but its value is inestimable for French history and culture, says Chalencon.
CHALENCON: And we can't imagine that diamond from Marie Louise, from queen of France and Empress Eugenie was stolen like this. You know, it's a joke.
BEARDSLEY: The thieves dropped the gold eagle crown of Empress Eugenie. It's said to be slightly dented, but its 1,300-plus diamonds and 56 emeralds are intact. They also left behind the small circular saw used to cut the glass cases. Investigators suspect a well-organized criminal gang. Time is of the essence, as experts say the jewels could be dismantled and the gold melted down to sell. Didier Rykner runs a website called La Tribune de l'Art. He's been writing about mismanagement at the Louvre for a while. He says apparently the alarm in the gallery was broken.
DIDIER RYKNER: There was an alarm, but it was just one minute before they left the museum. So it was not when they entered the museum. So I think this alarm didn't work.
BEARDSLEY: Other experts speculate the windows may not have had an alarm at all. The political blame game has started. Far-right opposition leader Jordan Bardella called the heist an unbearable humiliation for France. Just how far will the deterioration of the state go, he asked on Twitter.
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PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: In January, President Emmanuel Macron announced a nearly $1 billion project to bring the Louvre up to modern standards, including for security.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking French).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: The Louvre was closed today, but that didn't stop curious onlookers and disappointed tourists from showing up to try and make sense of things.
CAROLINE LARIVE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: It's the school vacation and Caroline Larive brought her kids to Paris from their small town in western France. She says she can't believe it was so easy to break in and steal the jewels.
ALEXANDRE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Nine-year-old Alexandre says he's disappointed he won't be able to see the Mona Lisa in person.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID HOLMES' "$160 MILLION CHINESE MAN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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