PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron ordered stepped-up security measures at the Louvre, as the Paris museum reopened its doors days after a shocking daytime heist. During a Wednesday meeting of cabinet ministers, Macron ordered a "speeding up" of security measures at the Louvre, government spokeswoman Maude Bregeon said.
Scores of investigators are looking for the culprits, working on the theory that it was an organised crime group that clambered up a ladder on a truck to break into the museum, then dropped a diamond-studded crown as they fled. The investigation "is progressing", Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told local media on Wednesday, saying "more than 100 investigators" had been mobilised. "I have full confidence, that's for sure, that we will find the perpetrators," he said.
The thieves made off with eight pieces, including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his wife Empress Marie-Louise and a diadem that once belonged to the Empress Eugenie, which is dotted with nearly 2,000 diamonds. Calling the financial loss "extraordinary", Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the greater damage was to France's historical heritage. — AFP
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