The Louvre museum in Paris has been closed following a robbery, according to France’s culture minister.
The museum, which is the world’s most popular, drawing up to 30,000 visitors a day, said on X it was closing for “exceptional reasons”.
In a separate post, culture minister Rachida Dati said there had been a robbery, but no injuries had been reported.
She said she was on site alongside museum and police teams.
Hooded criminals entered the building from the River Seine side, where construction work is taking place, French daily newspaper, Le Parisien, said, quoting preliminary findings from the police investigation.
After breaking windows, two intruders went to the Galerie d’Apollon (Appollo Gallery), home to a selection of the French Crown Jewels.
The robbers escaped with nine pieces of jewellery from Napoleon and the Empress’s collection.
A necklace, a brooch, a tiara, were among the items taken from the Napoleon and French Sovereigns display cases. A third robber stayed outside, Le Parisien said.
Social media users posted pictures and videos from in and outside the building, with one showing a long ladder stretching from the ground to the top and another people leaving in what the user described as “total panic”.
@kaci_calladetti said on X they were there and reported a confused-sounding scene of police “running near pyramid and trying to enter the Louvre from glass side doors but they were locked and they could not enter.
“Everyone inside was running and banging on glass doors to get out, but could not open. Police and military police arrived.”
It’s not the first time the museum, one of the world’s most famous and a French national landmark, has been targeted by thieves.
In 1911, the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by a former worker who hid inside the museum and walked out with the painting under his coat.
It was recovered two years later in Florence – an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait the world’s best-known artwork.
In 1983, two Renaissance-era pieces of armour were stolen and only recovered nearly four decades later.
The museum’s collection also bears the legacy of Napoleonic-era looting, containing 33,000 works of art, including antiquities, sculptures and paintings.
In addition to the Mona Lisa, its star attractions feature the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
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