by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 8:00 AM ET, Wed October 22, 2025
Update: October 22, 2025, at 8:20 a.m. ET
Even though the stolen jewels remain missing and the thieves
are still at large, The Louvre Museum in Paris, France, reopened to the public
on Wednesday, just three days after one of the highest-profile thefts of the
century.
According to The
Associated Press, visitors to The Louvre on Wednesday saw barriers being
removed as they entered the property, with the area where the crime happened
still sealed off by folding screens that obstructed the doorway.
The brazen theft left eight pieces from France’s Crown
Jewels missing and President Emmanuel Macron and Louvre chief Laurence des Cars
under scrutiny, as locals and the international community are wondering how security
failures could’ve happened at a building so important.
The robbery also exposed two major issues at The Louvre, as
the property has been dealing with swelling crowds and overstretched staff in
recent years, which has even resulted in employees recently walking off the job.
Original Text
Travelers hopeful to visit the world’s most-visited museum, the Louvre Museum in Paris, will be disappointed as it once more chooses to remain closed to visitors today, October 20, following a historic 4-minute heist on Sunday that robbed the museum of some of France’s most beloved crown jewels.
According to the Louvre Museum’s official website, “Following yesterday’s robbery at the Louvre, the museum regrets to inform you that it will remain closed to the public today. Visitors who have already purchased tickets will be automatically refunded.”
There is no word on when the Louvre will reopen to visitors, though it is likely that when it does, visitors might not be able to visit the scene of the crime. The Louvre is always closed on Tuesdays, so the fastest it could reopen would be this Wednesday.
The statue garden inside The Louvre Museum, Paris. (Photo Credit: Lacey Pfalz)
The museum, which was formerly a French palace and welcomes roughly 30,000 visitors daily, mainly to visit precious and famous artworks like the Mona Lisa, closed on Sunday following the heist, which occurred for about four minutes in a highly planned, coordinated heist that included breaking and entering via a Seine River-facing window in the Apollon Gallery, accessed by a basket lift on a truck.
According to AP News, the heist occurred just about half an hour after the Louvre opened to visitors. The thieves smashed two cases, triggering alarms and security agents. They fled with their haul on motorcycles, and the Louvre was closed and evacuated.
Eight items were stolen, worth hundreds of millions of dollars and which are considered “priceless” to France, including the emerald earrings and necklace of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon I’s second wife, among other jewelry.
Authorities were able to recover two objects which the thieves had dropped outside the museum in their race to flee, including an emerald and diamond crown of Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III’s wife, which boasts 1,300 diamonds. It was found broken.
This was the first successful heist of the Louvre in 27 years. According to the BBC, the last one occurred in 1998, when Camille Corot’s painting Le Chemin de Sevres was stolen. It has not been recovered.
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