French police on manhunt after thieves steal royal jewels from Louvre

French police are searching for four suspects believed to have stolen royal jewellery of “inestimable” historical value from Paris’s Louvre museum, in a heist that forced one of the world’s most famous attractions to close for the day.

The suspects were being sought by police after attempting to make off with nine pieces of priceless royal jewellery, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on Sunday night. Only eight were taken however, after they dropped the crown of Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they made their escape. The other items taken include necklaces, brooches and diadems.

The four had their faces covered and threatened security guards with the same tools they used to smash the display cases, before fleeing on high-powered scooters, Beccuau added. Some 60 investigators are working on the case with “total determination” to find the robbers and recover the items.

“Organised crime can have two objectives: either to act for the benefit of a sponsor, or to . . . obtain precious stones to carry out money laundering operations,” Beccuau said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said “the theft committed at the Louvre is an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history.

“We will recover the works, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice. Everything is being done, everywhere, to achieve this, under the leadership of the Paris prosecutor’s office,” he added.

Culture minister Rachida Dati said on X that no one was injured in the incident, and police were on the scene investigating the break-in.

“They acted professionally, without any violence or panic,” Dati told TF1 later on Sunday.

The interior ministry said the thieves arrived on scooters at about 9.30am and entered the Apollon Gallery through a window they had broken. “Beyond their market value, the goods have an inestimable heritage and historical value,” it added.

“These are professionals, museums have become targets,” Dati said, adding that upgrading security at these institutions was “an old issue”.

“For 40 years, no one has paid attention to securing these major museums,” she said. “These museums need to adapt to new forms of crime. It has become organised crime.”

The museum was closed throughout Sunday “for exceptional reasons”, it said on X.

The Louvre, which houses thousands of treasures including Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”, has been targeted before, notably in 1911 when the famous painting was stolen by a handyman. It was recovered and returned two years later.

Most of the museum’s art and artefacts were also hidden away by staff during the second world war Nazi occupation of France in a bid to prevent looting and damage from bombings.

Confirmed thefts from within the highly secure museum are rare, however. The last such incident from inside the museum complex was in 1998, according to Smithsonian magazine, when a small landscape painting was stolen.

Macron earlier this year announced an €800mn makeover plan for the Louvre, which included increasing the “safety and security of the collections”, as well as upgrading the museum’s surveillance and IT systems.