France’s cultural heart is under siege.
Musees de Langres/BBC News
According to BBC News, priceless pieces of history have disappeared from the country’s most revered institutions in a series of bold museum robberies, leaving curators reeling and investigators scrambling for answers.
A quiet town’s shocking discovery
In the peaceful town of Langres in north-eastern France, the Maison des Lumières, a museum dedicated to Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot, became the latest victim. When staff arrived on Tuesday morning, they found shattered glass, empty cases, and nearly 2,000 missing gold and silver coins valued at around €90,000.
The theft occurred on Sunday night. Officials said the stolen coins were chosen with “great expertise,” suggesting that the thieves were far from amateurs. The collection, which dates from 1790 to 1840, had been part of the city’s private holdings since it was discovered in 2011 during building renovations.
The Louvre’s glittering loss
The Langres heist came just hours after a far grander theft in Paris. At the Louvre, a gang posing as maintenance workers carried out a daylight robbery in the iconic Gallery of Apollo. They escaped with historic jewellery worth €88 million, including a diamond and emerald necklace once gifted by Emperor Napoleon to his wife and a tiara worn by Empress Eugénie.
Louvre director Laurence des Cars later told French senators that parts of the museum’s security system were “aging,” with CCTV cameras pointed away from key entry points. “We failed these jewels,” she admitted, adding that no one is immune to the threat of determined criminals.
A growing pattern across France
This was not an isolated incident. In Paris last month, thieves broke into the Natural History Museum and made off with six gold nuggets worth around €1.5 million. A Chinese national was later arrested in Barcelona while trying to sell melted-down gold connected to the theft.
And in the city of Limoges, two Chinese porcelain dishes and a vase worth €6.55 million vanished from the National Porcelain Museum. Despite being virtually impossible to sell on the art market, these valuable artefacts have yet to resurface.
Art detective Arthur Brand warned that more attempts could follow. “If someone can target the Louvre and escape with the French crown jewels, others may think their local museum could be next,” he told the BBC.
Security under scrutiny
French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin has since acknowledged “a failure of security protocols,” after reports revealed that a third of the Louvre’s rooms lacked CCTV coverage and that its alarm system had not triggered.
Even the Natural History Museum’s systems had been disabled by a cyber-attack, which the thieves appeared to have known about.
Across France, curators are reassessing how to protect their collections. From small-town galleries to world-famous museums, the country’s cultural guardians are facing a sobering reality. The treasures that tell France’s story may glitter under display lights, but their safety is increasingly uncertain.
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