Why Has the Louvre Heist Shocked France.mp4

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00:00Esther, this really feels like we're having a discussion about a movie plot.

00:04It's been called The Theft of the Decade.

00:06Give us the top-line info about what has actually happened here

00:10and why this has made such international headlines.

00:13Why is it so huge?

00:15I mean, this is a national embarrassment that only really the French could pull off

00:18in such spectacular fashion.

00:20It pains me to say.

00:21This heist, I mean, from every perspective, is just ludicrous.

00:26In broad daylight, at around 9.30 in the morning, you had men who basically posed

00:32as construction workers that took advantage of a part of the loo that was undergoing construction

00:36to basically steal these jewels, saw off the glass casing that was surrounding these jewels

00:43and steal them in a seven-minute heist, getting away on mopeds.

00:49One of the individuals, who was actually filmed by some people in the museum,

00:54was a very, very overweight man in a high-visibility jacket

00:58who literally managed to get on a moped and flee away with these priceless jewels

01:04to the extent that they actually dropped one of the jewels, which was Empress Eugenie's crown,

01:10which is a pearl and diamond-encrusted crown worth...

01:13It's probably priceless, basically.

01:15And it was found crushed on the side of the road by the gendarmerie

01:19when they were pursuing these thieves.

01:23Presumably, they have, you know, other items of jewelry that are so priceless

01:27that I don't know why they decided to leave this particular one on the side of the road.

01:31But it's so ludicrous, especially when you hear reports

01:34that there were actually members of staff in the Louvre

01:37that were complaining about understaffing.

01:40This is a place that receives 10 million visitors a year,

01:43and yet in the space of seven minutes, early in the morning, in broad daylight,

01:47you have these men that don't seem to be rocket scientists

01:51that managed to basically slip away with these jewels.

01:54And I think the feeling that is kind of going around in France right now

01:58is this is Macron's France, which has literally become the statement

02:02of everything that goes wrong in France over the last few years.

02:05It's just the sense of decline, the sense that nothing is working,

02:09the sense that, you know, probably the most well-known places in Paris,

02:14other than the Eiffel Tower, which receives millions of visitors a year,

02:17couldn't even be guarded sufficiently,

02:19should probably save a pittance, I would imagine.

02:22I mean, it just reeks of incompetence, and it's so shocking and sad.

02:26I do think the statement by that French minister

02:29that all of France feels robbed is a bit of an exaggeration.

02:34I'm sure most people don't feel like they're missing personally

02:37hundreds of millions of euros worth of precious jewels.

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