The Louvre has reopened three days after a daring €88 million jewellery heist that shocked France and drew global attention.

The Louvre Museum in Paris reopened its doors on Wednesday, three days after a daring robbery in which thieves escaped with historic royal jewellery valued at an estimated €88 million ($102 million).

Live footage broadcast by Reuters TV showed crowds of visitors once again streaming through the museum’s famous glass pyramid entrance, marking a return to normalcy after the audacious theft that captured global attention.

Thieves in balaclavas broke into the museum on Sunday, using a crane to smash an upstairs window, then stealing priceless objects from an area that houses the French crown jewels before escaping on motorbikes, officials said.

The robbery raised questions about security at the museum, where officials had already sounded the alarm about lack of investment at a world-famous site, home to artworks such as the Mona Lisa, that welcomed 8.7 million visitors in 2024.

“The theft committed at the Louvre is an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our History,” President Emmanuel Macron said on X. “We will recover the works, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice.”

The thieves struck at about 9.30 a.m. (0730 GMT) when the museum had already opened its doors to the public, and entered the Galerie d’Apollon building, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on BFM TV.

The robbery took between six to seven minutes and was carried out by four people who were unarmed, but who threatened the guards with angle grinders, she said.

A total of nine objects were targeted by the criminals, and eight were actually stolen. The thieves lost the ninth one, the crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, during their escape, Beccuau said.

“It’s worth several tens of millions of euros – just this crown. And it’s not, in my opinion, the most important item,” Drouot auction house President Alexandre Giquello said. .

Beccuau said it was a mystery why the thieves did not steal the Regent diamond, which is housed in the Galerie d’Apollon and is estimated to be worth more than $60 million by Sotheby’s.

“I don’t have an explanation,” she said. “It’ll only be when they’re in custody and face investigators that we’ll know what type of order they had and why they didn’t target that window.”

Beccuau said one of the thieves was wearing a yellow reflective vest, which investigators have recovered. She added that the robbers tried and failed to set fire to the crane, mounted on the back of a small truck, as they fled.

Museum officials said security protocols have since been strengthened to reassure visitors and protect the institution’s vast collection of priceless art and artefacts.

The Louvre, home to some of the world’s most iconic masterpieces including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, attracts millions of tourists annually and is considered one of France’s most important cultural landmarks.

As operations resumed, visitors expressed relief that the museum had reopened but also concern over the vulnerability of cultural treasures to increasingly sophisticated criminal activity. (Arise News)