France: Museum robbery sees 2,000 gold and silver coins stolen

Around 2,000 gold and silver coins worth around 90,000 euros (£78,000; $104,000) were stolen during a raid at another French museum – just hours after the audacious theft of some of the French crown jewels at the Louvre in Paris.

The incident happened at a museum dedicated to French philosopher Denis Diderot in Landres, north-eastern France on Sunday night.

When the Maison des Lumières (House of Enlightenment) reopened on Tuesday, workers noticed a smashed display case and raised the alarm, officials said. The coins were selected with “great expertise”, a statement to French media from the local authority said.

It is the latest in a recent string of heists at cultural institutions across France.

Also in September, thieves stole two Chinese porcelain dishes and a vase with an estimated combined worth of €6.55m from the national porcelain museum in the central city of Limoges. The items are still missing and no arrests have been made.

“They’re unsaleable on the art market. The pieces are too easily traceable anyway because they’re so well listed,” a ceramics expert told Le Parisien newspaper at the time.

The heist that has made headlines across the globe was the brazen daylight robbery of €88m worth of historic jewellery from the Louvre museum in Paris.

A gang disguised as workers used power-tools and a mechanical ladder to gain access to the first-floor Gallery of Apollo in the world’s most visited museum shortly after it opened on Sunday.

The loot included a diamond and emerald necklace Emperor Napoleon gave to his wife, a tiara worn by Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, and several pieces previously owned by Queen Marie-Amelie.

Art detective Arthur Brand told the BBC that there could be “copycats” working across the country and some gangs might do multiple “hits”.

The Louvre heist – as well as the other incidents – have raised concerns in France around the lax security at institutions that house some of its most prized treasures.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the heist, the Louvre’s director Laurence des Cars told French senators on Wednesday that CCTV around the Louvre’s perimeter was weak and “aging”.

The only camera monitoring the exterior wall of the Louvre where the theives broke in was pointing away from the first-floor balcony that led to the gallery housing the jewels, she said.

“We failed these jewels,” des Cars said, adding that no-one was protected from “brutal criminals – not even the Louvre”.

A preliminary report found one in three rooms in the Louvre lacked CCTV and that its wider alarm system did not go off.

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said security protocols had “failed”, lamenting that the thieves being able to drive a modified truck up to the museum had left France with a “terrible image”.

In the case of the gold stolen from the French Natural History Museum, the building’s alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled by a cyber-attack, with the thieves apparently aware of this, French media reported at the time.