While art heists might sound like the plot of a Hollywood thriller, the 2025 raid of the Louvre left a pretty glaring void in Paris’s cultural scene. If Ocean’s Eleven taught us anything, it’s that everyone loves a grand finale. And right on script, The Louvre has today reopened its Apollo Gallery after a lengthy hiatus. But as it turns out, this movie has a major twist.
If you were hoping to marvel at the French Crown Jewels yourself, we’ve got some bad news: there isn’t actually any jewellery inside. The museum has confirmed that the gallery is reverting to its original seventeenth-century function as a state architectural gallery. That means your visit is strictly for the gold-gilded ceilings and baroque vibes, because the display cases are completely empty.
Probably for good reason too, as the museum is understandably terrified of history repeating itself. In an interview with Le Parisien newspaper, the Louvre’s new president, Christophe Leribault, confirmed that all surviving ‘collections and precious objects’ have been permanently yanked from the space.
This is all the doing of a daylight stunt pulled off on October 19 2025. A group of robbers disguised themselves as construction workers, parked a hijacked furniture moving truck outside, and used its motorised ladder hoist to scale the building. After cutting through a first-floor window, they made off with eight French crown jewels worth a cool €88 million, vanishing on motorbikes.
If you’re wondering whether the culprits were ever caught, while police used DNA from a discarded helmet to track down and arrest the thieves, the actual multi-million euro haul has vanished into the criminal underworld. The suspects handed the treasures to a mysterious mastermind who was allegedly ‘disappointed’ they didn’t steal even more. Experts now fear the pieces may have already been melted down and broken apart to sell off as individual stones.
As for the leftover royal jewellery that didn’t get snatched, including the massive 140-carat Regent Diamond that the thieves bizarrely ignored, the museum isn’t taking any more chances. ‘We are going to create a secure room, a vault with no windows, in another part of the museum,’ Leribault explained. It’s an expensive construction project, meaning they still have to map out the ideal hidden location and find the funding to build it.
Culture Minister Catherine Pegard will be attending the official ribbon-cutting ceremony today to mark the room’s grand return. So while you won’t spot any diamonds, it’s still well worth a spot on your Paris weekend itinerary, if just to stand inside the scene of the most audacious crimes of the decade.
Prefer movies without the heist drama? Here’s how you can watch a film inside the Eiffel Tower for free.
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