San Francisco Frontiers - French police hunt Louvre jewel thieves

Officials said a team of 60 investigators were working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organised crime group.

In France, it reignited a row over the lack of security in France's museums, which the new Interior Minister Laurent Nunez acknowledged Sunday was a "major weak spot".

The thieves arrived between 9:30 and 9:40 am (0730 and 0740 GMT) Sunday, shortly after the museum opened to the public at 9:00 am, a source close to the investigation said.

They used a furniture hoist to get access to the Apollo Gallery, home to the royal collection, and cutting equipment to get in through a window and open the display cases.

A brief clip of the raid, apparently filmed on the phone of a visitor to the museum, was broadcast on French news channels.

The masked thieves stole nine 19th-century items of jewellery, one of which -- the crown of the Empress Eugenie -- was dropped and damaged as they made their escape.

- Seven-minute raid -

Eight "priceless" items of jewellery were stolen, the culture ministry said Sunday. The list they released included an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon gave his wife Empress Marie Louise.

Also stolen was a diadem that once belonged to the Empress Eugenie, which has nearly 2,000 diamonds; and a necklace that once belonged to Marie-Amelie, the last queen of France. It has eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, according to the Louvre's website.

The whole raid took just seven minutes and was thought to have been carried out by an experienced team, possibly "foreigners", said Nunez.

The intervention of the museum's staff forced the thieves to flee, leaving behind some of the equipment used in the raid, said the culture ministry in a statement.

The loot would be impossible to sell on in its current state, said the president of the leading auctioneer Drouot Patrimoine, Alexandre Giquello.

- National 'humiliation' -

It was the first theft from the Louvre since 1998, when a painting by Corot was stolen and never seen again.

Sunday's raid relaunched a debate over what critics says is the poor security at the nation's museums, far less secure than banks and increasingly targeted by thieves.

Last month, criminals broke into Paris's Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth $700,000.

The same month, thieves stole two dishes and a vase from a museum in the central city of Limoges, the losses estimated at $7.6 million.

Sunday's robbery sparked angry political reactions.

"How far will the disintegration of the state go?" said far-right National Rally party leader Jordan Bardella on social media, calling the theft "an unbearable humiliation for our country".

President Emmanuel Macron said on social media that "everything is being done" to catch the perpetrators and recover the stolen treasures.

Q.Nelson--SFF