A report from the French Court of Auditors made public this Thursday harshly criticizes the management, maintenance, and security of the Louvre Museum. In light of the damning document, prepared before the spectacular robbery of the eight jewels of Napoleon and the Empress on October 19, Minister of Culture Rachida Dati has called for an urgent meeting of the museum's board of directors on November 7.
The president of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, whose resignation was rejected by President Emmanuel Macron after the robbery, is back in the spotlight. It is expected that the board of directors will order the "immediate" installation of anti-intrusion devices around the museum's perimeter and the creation of a new security department, as well as a thorough review of the museum's governance and organization.
The Court of Auditors criticizes the Louvre's policy of "buying a lot and expensively" (the collection has increased by 2,754 pieces in eight years) and prioritizing the acquisition of works over museum maintenance. The report criticizes the slow implementation of the "security master plan" and the numerous shortcomings, such as the insufficiency of surveillance cameras, which barely cover 25% of the Richelieu wing and 64% of the Denon wing, which houses the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.
The report highlights the "imbalance" between the budget allocated to the acquisition of works and that for improving and restoring the world's most visited museum, with nine million visitors per year. "It is necessary to prioritize decisive investments for its future, particularly the improvement of technical infrastructure, including security and museum restoration," warn the experts.
The Court of Auditors also criticizes the Louvre Renaissance project announced with great fanfare in January by Emmanuel Macron, involving the creation of an additional entrance to "unclog" the Pyramid and the establishment of a separate room for the Mona Lisa. "This ambitious operation began without prior studies, whether technical and architectural feasibility studies, without definitions of functional needs, and without financial evaluations, operating costs, or impact on visitor flow," the report states. The project was initially estimated at 450 million euros, reevaluated in June to 667 million, and estimated at 1,000 million according to some calculations.
The report is seen as a corrective to the management of Jean-Luc Martínez as president of the Louvre from 2013 to 2021, when Laurence des Cars took over without the necessary shift in investments to ensure "maintenance and modernization." "The museum has abundant own resources that it must mobilize as a priority to carry out this urgent work, without waiting for the State to provide additional funding," concludes the Court of Auditors.
The report was released hours after the identity of one of the detainees as a suspected member of the four-man "commando" that carried out the robbery of jewels estimated at 88 million euros was made public. He is N. Abdoulaye, 39 years old, a former security guard at the Pompidou Center and an influencer on social media under the name of Doudou Cross Bitume, known as "the motocross legend of Aubervilliers," where he was arrested.
His DNA matches the evidence found by the police in the Apollo Gallery, where the robbery took place, using a lifting platform installed on a van to access the windows and a glass cutter to enter the museum and steal the jewels from the display cases where they were exhibited.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau recently stated that the robbery was "less professional" than initially believed due to all the clues left by the assailants who fled on motorcycles, although the first two detainees had a history of theft. The jewels have not been recovered, and there are fears that they were dismantled to be taken out of the country.