Heist at the Louvre: the essential testimony of the trade unions

The Committee on Cultural Affairs of the French National Assembly continues its hearings as part of the inquiry into museum security.
Thus, on 15 January, several senior officials from the Ministry of Culture were heard, including the recently appointed Director General of Heritage and Architecture, Delphine Christophe, and her predecessor, still in office at the time of the Louvre heist, Jean-François Hébert. On 21 January, it was the turn of the trade union representatives. As with the previous articles devoted to these hearings, we give pride of place here to the participants’ quotes, sometimes lengthy, as they are often very enlightening and confirm our previous analyses.

Hearing of the Directorate General of Heritage
before the French National Assembly inquiry committee
From left to right: Delphine Christophe, Christelle Creff, Jean-François Hébert
Screenshot

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The first of these hearings did not provide many additional elements compared to what had already been said. However, they confirm what was already known: the Louvre left its supervisory authority unaware of the progress of the master security plan, while it was at a standstill. In July 2023 and December 2024, the Louvre had indeed sent two letters on this subject, which Jean-François Hébert explains were “extremely reassuring.” He further specifies that “the purpose of these two letters was to say: everything is fine, the master plan is progressing, we just need for [include] the C2RMF a financial contribution from the Ministry.”

For the Louvre, therefore, everything was fine, while the master plan was not advancing. This clearly did not concern the supervisory authority, whose real level of control remains questionable.
According to Jean-François Hébert, there were three delays. The first was linked to the health crisis, which he says he understands perfectly. This is true, but as we have already written, the health crisis is absolutely not responsible for the delays incurred by Laurence des Cars, since she arrived at the end of the Covid period.
The second delay, still according to the former Director General of Heritage, would be “the reassessment by the new team led by Laurence des Cars,” which he finds “entirely normal.” Yet we have shown, with supporting documents, that this delay was far from normal, as it was based on false reasons, once again proving that the supervisory authority was keeping a very distant view.

The third delay concerns “the years 23 and late 25.” For Jean-François Hébert, this too is normal! “Should we have been alarmed by these delays? Naturally, one asks the question retrospectively. The question arises, but I do not believe so for several reasons […] because every time we were given explanations for these delays, these explanations seemed plausible to us.” As we have seen in previous articles, no, it was not plausible for a second. But with the supervisory authority exercising virtually no control, it…