(NewsNation) — The director of the Louvre is being asked to testify before French lawmakers as more details emerge about a heist at the iconic museum.
Laurence des Cars, director of the Louvre, will be appearing before the French Senate’s cultural committee and answering some tough questions about security and the brazen theft.
On Sunday morning, just after the Louvre opened, thieves burst into the museum’s famed Apollo gallery and then took off with eight or nine priceless, jewel-encrusted royal artifacts, some of which dated back to Napoleon and French royalty.
The hearing will investigate museum management, security protocols, staffing levels at the time of the heist and possible links to organized crime.
Investigators are also saying that it could have been an inside job, or at least a theft done by someone who had some knowledge about the gallery’s layout and security.
The museum is under pressure for lax security. Internal audits show that large portions of the museum lacked full video surveillance despite previous warnings that the Louvre lacks the equipment to keep the art inside safe.
NewsNation national security contributor Tracy Walder said there were lapses in security at every step of the robbery.
“I am shocked that every window does not have its own alarm at the loop. Now, granted, it’s huge. It’s essentially a palace, right?” Walder said. “There are lots of windows, but the fact that an alarm didn’t go off at the window when they first made that point of entry. Also, he’s standing there with that angle grinder for three to four minutes. That’s actually a long time, and it’s my understanding that there may or may not have been CCTV. This is per the French reporting in some of these areas. So the fact that no one got to them that quickly is also surprising to me.”
An internal, preliminary audit is set to be released in November. It also showed that security protocols have not been keeping up with the increasing number of visitors.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called the theft an attack on the country’s heritage.
The theft is not an isolated incident. Other cultural institutions in France have also been targeted recently, which raises broader questions about the protection of the country’s historic artifacts.
One historian even said that this theft surpasses the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa in terms of significance.
Investigators are going through surveillance video, looking at forensic evidence from the display case and the windows and also following any leads on the escape route and getaway motorcycles.
France’s interior minister, however, says the museum’s alarm was triggered when the window to the gallery was broken and officers arrived between two and three minutes after a witness called them.
France’s cultural minister told lawmakers today that the cameras did not fail but did not provide any more details about how the thieves were able to pull off the heist.