Louvre gallery hit by crown jewel theft to reopen without jewels

The Apollo Gallery at Paris's Louvre Museum, where French crown jewels worth 88 million euros were stolen in 2025, will reopen to the public on Wednesday, an informed source told AFP.

The source said no jewels will be on display. The gallery will instead return to its 17th-century function as a state gallery. The source also confirmed a Le Parisien report that Culture Minister Catherine Pegard would be present for the reopening.

Louvre president Christophe Leribault told Le Parisien that the collections and precious objects previously displayed in the gallery had been removed.

On October 19, 2025, robbers disguised as construction workers entered the gallery in the morning using a truck-mounted lift and stole eight crown jewels. The jewels remain missing.

For jewellery that was not stolen, Leribault said the museum plans to create a secure windowless vault in another part of the Louvre. He said the project would require choosing the right location and finding funding.

The burglary drew worldwide attention and exposed major security lapses at the Louvre, which is visited by about nine million people each year. The theft also triggered an internal crisis at the museum, leading to Laurence des Cars being replaced as president by Leribault.

A parliamentary commission on museum security in France said in mid-May that security issues at the Louvre had been pushed into the background in recent years.