The Apollo Gallery at the Louvre Museum, where French crown jewels worth €88 million were stolen in a brazen 2025 heist, reopens to the public today.
However, no jewels will be displayed. Instead, the space will return to its original 17th-century function as a state gallery, an informed source told AFP earlier this week.
Confirming a report by French newspaper Le Parisien, the source said the gallery would reopen today. Culture Minister Catherine Pegard is expected to attend the reopening.
In an interview with the newspaper, Louvre president Christophe Leribault said the collections and precious objects previously displayed in the gallery had been removed.
On October 19, 2025, robbers disguised as construction workers entered the gallery in the morning using a truck-mounted lift. They stole eight crown jewels, which remain missing.
The jewellery that was not stolen will eventually be moved to a secure, windowless vault elsewhere in the museum.
“It’s a major construction project, and we have to find the ideal location. And the funding,” Leribault said.
The burglary stunned the world and exposed major security lapses at the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, which welcomes around nine million people annually.
The theft also triggered an internal crisis and led to Leribault replacing former museum president Laurence des Cars.
A French parliamentary commission examining museum security concluded in mid-May that security concerns at the Louvre had been neglected in recent years. — AFP
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