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French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, announced in a tweet the “opening of a ‘fact-checking’ line by the Louvre Museum’s press office” to counter the “false information circulating about the theft”. This is rather rich. Let us recall that “fact-checking” is a strange notion. Journalism — real journalism — should verify its information. “Fact-checkers” are simply journalists doing their job properly. Replacing investigative journalists covering the Louvre with the museum’s own press office is, in reality, asking the subject of the article to write it themselves. This is the opposite of journalism, and thus the opposite of “fact-checking”!
It is also paradoxical to see the Louvre engaging in “fact-checking” when one considers what its president has to say. We have obtained recordings of Laurence des Cars and her deputies addressing staff gathered last Monday at 11 am to hear their explanations, and it was quite a spectacle.
For instance, she claims that the meeting she attended was planned: “It was perfectly planned that I would meet you today.” This is clearly untrue, as the meeting was organised at the last minute after staff unanimously refused to take up their posts unless the president addressed them. The best proof is that the Louvre was supposed to open, as all the television crews on site observed, but it remained closed, leaving visitors stranded outside.
The way she began her presentation was extraordinary. She describes the Louvre as a “collective.” “This is a painful, difficult moment for our institution, for our collective, but it is as a collective that we will respond.” She even acts as a shield for her teams against the “fallacious information” (sic) circulating, urging them to “protect themselves just a little.”
This suggests that it is the Louvre staff who might be criticised, and she assures them of her solidarity, which is itself “fallacious.” In reality, she hides behind the “collective” to avoid taking responsibility: “We are facing this together. You should not be called into question. I will not tolerate it. The minister will not tolerate it. The president of the Republic will not tolerate it.” She can rest assured. It is she who is responsible. She who is being called into question. And by her own troops, no less.
At no point — or almost none — did Laurence des Cars acknowledge her responsibility in this debacle. Calling it a debacle is perhaps an overstatement: throughout her speech, she stuck to one word: “incident.” The Sunday theft was an “incident.” Let us recall the definition of this term (Académie française dictionary): “A minor, usually unfortunate event that occurs during the course of an action, enterprise, or affair.” If this term can be used euphemistically, there is no trace of that in her speech. It is worth noting that Gérard Araud, president of the Société des Amis du Louvre, also tweeted using this term, even though several of the stolen works were donated by this society. Faced with outraged reactions, he has since deleted his tweet.
Everyone is astonished by how quickly the two display cases were forced open. Everyone, that is, except the president, who dares to claim — without batting an eyelid — that these cases were almost perfect. According to the head of security, they are “display cases that offer a certain resistance to break-ins.” A certain resistance, like the barrel of a cannon cooling after firing a shellThis refers to a famous sketch by French comedian Fernand Reynaud.]]! And Laurence des Cars goes even further, saying exactly: “We can see that these display cases resisted, since the glass never actually fell. So it was by putting their hands through, in fact creating a breach, that they managed to break in somehow. This clearly shows the quality, obviously, of these very recent display cases from 2019.” So everything is fine, then, since the display cases resisted… The Louvre’s “fact-check” is therefore: “the display cases resisted.” Laurence des Cars also emphasises the speed of the operation: less than four minutes in the Galerie d’Apollon: “It’s incredibly fast.” So we have display cases that offer “a certain resistance to break-ins” and are broken into in an “incredibly fast” time. The contradiction does not seem to bother them.
The display cases are therefore beyond reproach, as are the alarms. Let us listen again to Laurence des Cars: “The alarms worked perfectly, both on the window and on the display cases. Let’s put an end to the idea that we wouldn’t hear the problems and that the system was deficient. No.” The Ministry of Culture issued a press release saying the same thing.
The question of the alarms remains unclear for now. We repeat our information here: on 13 September, a report of a malfunction in the alarm on the French window overlooking the Seine was filed. This malfunction caused false alerts and had been deactivated. The question is: had it been repaired and put back into service by the time of the break-in? Our sources say no, but on this point, we have no proof. However, according to our colleagues at France Info: “A police source states that the thieves entered through a window ‘whose alarm system has been out of order for a month and a half. This suggests intelligence, complicity, and reconnaissance. The window did not sound…’ ‘Checks on the alarm systems are ongoing,’ the Paris prosecutor’s office specified on Tuesday.” This would therefore confirm that, in reality, the window alarm had not been put back into service.
Laurence des Cars admits only one “weakness in this affair”: “the perimeter surveillance of the building, that is, the cameras outside, to be very clear.” It is indeed difficult to claim otherwise, since everyone could see that a hoist could be quietly installed on the pavement alongside the Galerie d’Apollon to enter and commit the theft.
But this is not really her fault, and it is just bad luck! Because everything was planned… in the €80 million master plan that will be implemented with the “Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance” project. She will now “discuss with the cabinet and the minister” to speed things up. She thus acknowledges that there is no protection around the Louvre, but of course, it is not her fault.
As for the woefully inadequate video camera coverage inside the rooms, particularly criticised by the Cour des Comptes (French Court of Auditors), while she admits it is accurate, even speaking of a “structural situation of under-coverage by video that is simply unbelievable, unbelievable”, she has, of course, taken the measure of things over the past four years. Because it took no less than four years to conduct studies. In reality — and we will return to this when our investigation is complete — these studies have been significantly delayed due to disastrous project management and cost-cutting.
For Laurence des Cars, we must “kill the rumours and malice”: “Information circulated very well” among the Louvre teams at the time of the break-in. Once again, contradictions do not faze her, as a little later, her head of security describes all the measures to be taken to ensure communications work properly, including the ongoing deployment, since June, of radio equipment. She adds that “communication between the agents of the Direction de l’Accueil du Public et de la Surveillance (DAPS) and the agents of the Direction de la Médiation et du Développement des Publics (DMDP) […] must be absolutely beyond reproach”, and they will work together to ensure that it is.
So, communication worked perfectly, but it is not beyond reproach? It is a bit like the alarms that worked without really working. All of this would almost be funny if it were not tragic.
We could draw much more from this meeting, and we probably will. In the meantime, according to Le Figaro, Laurence des Cars reportedly tendered her resignation, which was allegedly refused. It is not said by whom, but obviously by the president of the Republic, who appointed her. She is indeed well supported, like the rope supports the hanged man, by Emmanuel Macron and Rachida Dati. We will allow ourselves not to believe this resignation fable, which was probably not offered very firmly. Besides, does one resign over a mere “incident”? The president of the Louvre told staff that her heart was bleeding. Ours is too.