The spectacular heist forced the closure of the Louvre / © AFP
Thieves raided Paris's Louvre museum in broad daylight Sunday, taking just seven minutes to grab some of France's priceless crown jewels, but dropping a gem-encrusted crown as they fled, officials and sources said.
The spectacular heist, one of several to target French museums in recent months, forced the closure of the Louvre, the world's most-visited museum and home to the Mona Lisa.
President Emmanuel Macron posted on social media that "everything is being done" to catch the perpetrators and recover the stolen treasures.
The raiders targeted the 'Galerie d'Apollon' (Apollo's Gallery) / © AFP/File
Outside the Louvre, soldiers patrolled the famed glass pyramid entrance, while evacuated visitors, tourists and passersby were kept at a distance behind police tape.
It was "like a Hollywood movie", one American tourist, Talia Ocampo, told AFP.
It was "crazy" and "something we won't forget -- we could not go to the Louvre because there was a robbery", she said.
- 'Priceless' treasures -
A culture ministry statement said eight items of jewellery had been stolen from the Apollo Gallery that houses the French crown jewels.
"Two high-security display cases were targeted, and eight objects of priceless cultural heritage were stolen," it said.
They included the emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon gave his wife Empress Marie Louise and the 19th-century crown of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III.
The diamond and emerald crown of the Empress Eugenie was recovered near the Louvre after the raid / © AFP
Police are looking for a team of four thieves, Paris's chief prosecutor Laure Beccuau told the BFMTV channel.
The thieves had threatened museum guards with the angle grinders they used to break into the jewellery cases, she said, adding that a team of 60 investigators was on the case.
The robbers used a powered, extendable ladder of the sort used to hoist furniture into buildings to get into the gilded gallery, said officials.
Eugenie's crown was recovered after the thieves dropped it as they made their escape, said the culture ministry statement. According to the museum's website, it is covered in 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds.
- Getting in 'took 30 seconds' -
The items stolen also included a necklace from the sapphire jewellery of Queen Marie Amelie and Queen Hortense and a pair of emerald earrings that once belonged to Marie Louise, said the culture ministry.
The thieves arrived between 9:30 and 9:40 am (0730 and 0740 GMT), a source close to the investigation said, shortly after the museum opened to the public at 9:00 am.
One police source said the robbers had ridden up on a scooter armed with angle grinders and used the furniture hoist to get inside the Louvre.
The heist forced the closure of the Louvre / © AFP
Witness Samir, who was riding a bicycle nearby at the time, told the TF1 channel that he saw two men "get on the hoist, break the window and enter... it took 30 seconds".
He saw four of them leave on scooters and called the police.
The robbery struck just 800 metres (half a mile) from Paris police headquarters.
The Louvre's management told AFP it had closed the museum because it wanted to "preserve traces and clues for the investigation".
Opposition politicians reacted with outrage.
Far-right National Rally party leader Jordan Bardella denounced what he described as "an unbearable humiliation for our country" in a post on social media.
"France has been stolen," said Laurent Wauquiez, who leads the right-wing Republicans in parliament.
"We have to protect what is most precious to us: our history," he added.
- 'Great vulnerability' -
The Louvre used to be the seat of French kings until Louis XIV abandoned it for Versailles in the late 1600s.
It is the world's most visited museum, last year welcoming nine million people to its extensive hallways and galleries.
Laurent Nunez, the capital's former police chief who became interior minister last week, said he was aware of "a great vulnerability" in museum security in France.
The thieves used a furniture hoist to get access to the gallery / © AFP
Last month, criminals broke into Paris's Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth 600,000 euros ($700,000).
Earlier the same month, thieves stole two dishes and a vase from a museum in the central city of Limoges, the losses estimated at 6.5 million euros.
But thefts from the Louvre have been rarer.
A painting by French painter Camille Corot disappeared from the museum in 1998 and has never been recovered.
In 1911, an Italian worker at the museum stole the Mona Lisa, but it was recovered and today sits behind security glass.
Macron in January pledged the Louvre would be redesigned after its director voiced alarm about conditions inside.
That redesign project included reinforced security, he said Sunday.
