Le Monde: Hidden audit warned of exact security flaw used in Louvre heist

The Louvre is still grappling with the fallout from the October 19 jewel heist in the Apollo Gallery, as new revelations show that a 2018 security audit explicitly warned of the vulnerability exploited by the burglars.

While the Sénat, the Court of Accounts, and the Ministry of Culture have already faulted the museum’s leadership for major security lapses, Le Monde has learned that prosecutors had never been informed of this crucial document.

Commissioned in 2018 under former Louvre president Jean-Luc Martinez, the audit was carried out by the security division of jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels amid rising concerns over armed robberies around the museum. The experts produced a detailed account of security failings, devoting two pages and three diagrams to the balcony overlooking the Apollo Gallery—the very access point used in the break-in.

One illustration circled the balcony, calling a window facing Quai François-Mitterrand “one of the museum's greatest points of vulnerability.” The report also warned of easy ground-level access and showed how criminals could use a lift platform; these details match the October 19 method. Photos included in the audit also showed gaps in camera coverage.

Asked by Le Monde, Van Cleef & Arpels security chief Francis Paccagnini “not deny the existence of the audit” but declined further comment, saying he was “not authorized to discuss this subject on his own initiative.”

Current Louvre management, led since 2021 by Laurence des Cars, said the museum only discovered the audit after the 2025 theft.

“The president of the Louvre requested all documents linked to works carried out in the Apollo Gallery over the past 25 years. [Only then] were several documents identified, including a 2018 risk assessment drafted by an external expert.”

The museum said the documents “had not been handed over during the leadership transition in autumn 2021.” The audit has since been “forwarded to the General Inspectorate of Cultural Affairs to be included in the ongoing investigations.”

The omission raises questions about administrative failures. Martinez had begun work on a “security master plan” in 2018, to which the audit should have contributed; the plan was only completed in 2024. Martinez could not be reached on November 25.

Des Cars said she had “alerted the French government, in the months following her appointment in September 2021, to the museum's vulnerabilities and initiated several modernization projects in close collaboration with the Ministry of Culture.”

She added that she informed authorities and media of her “determination to address the Louvre's advanced state of deterioration and that of its equipment.” Her efforts were formalized when President Emmanuel Macron announced the €1-billion “Louvre – Nouvelle Renaissance” renovation project on January 28.

Despite the audit now being known to supervisory bodies, the two judges leading the organised-crime investigation into the heist have still not been informed of its existence.

Four suspects were indicted between October 29 and November 1, and four more were arrested on November 25. Investigators hope the audit may reveal whether confidential material was leaked to criminal groups, which, according to an October 28 intelligence memo, “do not hesitate to use (…) contractors recruited via encrypted messaging services.”

By Sabina Mammadli