FRENCH AUTHORITIES ARE searching for a group of thieves who stole priceless royal pieces of jewellery from the Louvre Museum yesterday morning.

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

Four masked thieves targeted the Gallerie d’Apollon, which houses the French Crown Jewels. They arrived between 8.30am and 8.40am and completed the robbery in seven minutes.

The group used a furniture hoist to get access to the gallery, and cutting equipment to get in through a window and open the display cases.

The burglary has reignited a row over the lack of security in France’s museums, which have been increasingly targeted by thieves.

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

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

One of the items stolen included an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon gave his wife Empress Marie Louise.

Tiara of Empress Eugénie (left) in the Gallerie d'Appollon. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

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 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.

‘We have failed’

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

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez acknowledged yesterday that museum security was a “major weak spot”.

France’s Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin to security flaws in protecting the Louvre that had led to robbers a day earlier stealing imperial jewels in broad daylight from the famed Paris museum.

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

“What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of Paris, get people up it in several minutes to grab priceless jewels and give France a terrible image,” he told France Inter radio.

Although it was the first theft from the Louvre since 1998, when a painting by Corot was stolen and never seen again, French museums are increasingly being targeted by thieves.

Last month, criminals broke into Paris’s Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth €600,500.

The same month, thieves stole two dishes and a vase from a museum in the central city of Limoges, the losses estimated at €6.5 million.

With additional reporting from AFP.