GUARDIANS OF CULTURE: Louvre Thieves Steal Priceless Crown Jewels in Broad Daylight

They walked into Louvre Museum at 9:30 a.m. They used a crane smashed a window and stole the the rarest French crown jewels in four minutes.

Robbed in broad daylight. Tells you everything you need to know about “guardians of culture.”

The French are a joke.

The BFMTV channel published the first footage of the Louvre robbery.

In the video, a man in a yellow vest is opening a display case with a grinding machine, and visitors do not pay attention to it.

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— BLYSKAVKA (@blyskavka_ua) October 19, 2025

Thieves made off with jewelry of “incalculable” value in a brazen daylight robbery on Sunday at the Louvre Museum in Paris, according to France’s interior minister. The heist unfolded around 9:30 a.m. Laurent Nuñez, the interior minister, told France Inter radio that the thieves had used a lift mechanism on a truck — typically used to move furniture into Parisian apartments through the windows — to break into the Galerie d’Apollon, a second-floor wing of the museum. The Apollon Gallery’s gilded hall holds the royal collection of gems and the crown diamonds, including “The Regent,” “The Sancy” and the “Hortensia.” The thieves broke into two display cases and snatched eight precious objects before fleeing on motor scooters with their loot — all within just seven minutes, according to Mr. Nuñez… According to the French Culture Ministry, five museum staff were in the Apollon Gallery when the burglars broke in, sounding the security alarms. They applied the museum’s security protocol: contacting the police and “prioritizing the protection of people.” Visitors had been inside the building for 30 minutes by then. Some panicked at first, worrying the building was experiencing a terrorist attack or a fire, said Joseph Sanchez, a tourist from Puerto Rico who was in line with family members waiting to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa when security guards began to shout for people to exit the room. They were kept in the museum’s lobby for more than an hour before being calmly evacuated, Mr. Sanchez said in an interview. (New York Times)

The Apollo gallery houses France’s crown jewels.