The president of the Louvre Museum resigns after the disaster unleashed by the theft of the French Crown jewels | Culture | EUROtoday

The president of the Louvre Museum, Laurence des Cars, has offered her resignation to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who has accepted it, as confirmed by the Elysée in an announcement this Tuesday. Des Cars resigns after months of controversies surrounding the artwork gallery, which started after the spectacular theft on October 19, by which 4 assailants entered the Apollo Gallery, one of the visited within the museum, and took the eight jewels of the French Crown.

Emmanuel Macron has known as the resignation an “act of responsibility at a time when the world’s largest museum needs stability and new momentum to successfully complete major security and modernization projects and the ‘Louvre, new renaissance’ project.”

The now former director defined the explanations for her resignation shortly after in an interview with Le Figaro: “I have come to the conclusion that the modernization of the Louvre that I have led since I took office in September 2021 can no longer be carried out. Remaining in office would mean managing what exists, when the Louvre needs to continue its transformation.”

He had already submitted his resignation to Culture Minister Rachida Dati shortly after the theft, though it was then rejected by Dati, who ordered an administrative investigation that exposed vital safety deficiencies, forcing the museum to take emergency measures.

However, because the assault, disasters have occurred. A month later, the Campana Gallery, which homes a number of rooms devoted to Greek ceramics, needed to shut because of the fragility of its beams and the danger of collapse. This was later joined by a water leak that triggered vital injury to a gallery with documentation on the Egyptian interval, and a sustained strike by its staff that has compelled the museum to shut its doorways for a number of days since December.

The assault solely revealed safety issues, nevertheless it was later discovered that the biggest and most visited museum on the earth had many others. Nobody might consider it when on October 19, a Sunday in broad daylight, 4 hooded people accessed the balcony that offers entry to the Apollo Gallery with a ladder and broke the show circumstances the place the Napoleonic jewels have been displayed with radials, to the helplessness of the safety guards.

They took 9. Only considered one of them was recovered, the crown of Empress Eugenia de Montijo, however as a result of the thieves dropped it throughout their escape. They have been all arrested days later, though the jewels nonetheless haven’t appeared.

After the assault, Laurence des Cars, on the heart of all of the criticism, tried to provide explanations earlier than the Assembly and the Senate, and admitted that she herself had alerted the Ministry of Culture of the deficiencies within the museum, not solely by way of safety, but in addition in its services, which have been very previous and unrenovated.

Several stories earlier than and after the theft confirmed these issues. One of them even warned of the issues posed by the balcony via which the thieves sneaked in. Another from the Court of Auditors revealed that the artwork gallery had prioritized the acquisition of works over different points, resembling the upkeep of services or safety. 2,754 works have been bought in eight years. This report lined the interval 2018-2024, that of Des Cars’ presidency, appointed in 2021, and that of his predecessor, Jean Luc Martinez, though criticism has targeted on her.

The fruits of those months of agony for the museum has been a strike by the employees, which compelled the middle to shut utterly or partially this Christmas. The workers demand enhancements of their working situations, which they’re nonetheless negotiating with the Ministry of Culture, and denounce inadequate means to deal with the rising inflow lately. Nine million folks visited it in 2025. “What makes me leave is not a strike, but the impossibility of transforming the museum in the current institutional context,” Laurence des Cars instructed Le Figaro.

The head of Culture, Rachida Dati, was questioned this Monday within the parliamentary fee that’s investigating, after the theft, the administration of the artwork gallery. During her look, which was held behind closed doorways at her request, she revealed that the reorganization work on the Louvre, which she herself superior within the month of December, has been deserted.

This Wednesday, Laurence des Cars will seem once more, though he has already resigned, to proceed giving explanations. He assures within the interview Le Figaro: “I may have made mistakes, but I believe I have set the Louvre in motion.” “This lucidity may have been painful at times, but it was essential to put the Louvre on the path to transformation.”

Macron thanked him for his “action and commitment over the years.” “Relying on his incontestable scientific experience, he wanted to entrust him with a mission within the French presidency of the G7 on cooperation between the great museums of the countries involved,” says the Elysée.

Laurence des Cars was the primary girl to run the biggest artwork gallery on the earth in its 230-year historical past. Before, he had visited the nice Parisian museums, such because the Musée d’Orsay or the Orangerie. After his departure he mentioned: “When you arrive at an institution like the Louvre, you know that you are passing through, that you are only a link in the long chain of transmission.”