Easier to ‘break into museums than a jewellery shop’: Louvre heist highlights security gaps

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00:00With our top story then that is of course the two arrests or potentially two people arrested

00:05over that Louvre heist. We're going to speak now to France 24's International Affairs Editor

00:10Philip Turrell. Hi Philip. So this heist raised a lot of questions. Can you tell us specifically

00:16about some of the security concerns that it obviously raised in the wake of these arrests?

00:20I think you have to underline something here and that is that this is the Louvre Museum. This is a

00:25building that was a former royal palace in France that's 800 years old and it's not the same when

00:33you come to trying to secure a building like the Louvre Museum as it is to try and secure a jewellery

00:39shop or somewhere where jewels are on show to the public in windows. There are many of those in

00:46Paris some of them have been burgled but it's much more difficult to break into a jewellery shop which

00:50has reinforced windows and security on the door than it is maybe to break into a museum because

00:57it's it's a place where the jewels are not in a safe they are on show to the public. So I think

01:04we had to put all this into perspective and one of the problems that the Louvre Museum has there are

01:09quite a few problems but one of the major problems is that there is a surfeit of tourism right now in

01:14France. You've seen an increase gradually over the years of the number of tourists going into the

01:18museum. There was the pyramid that was built under François Mitterrand because there wasn't enough

01:24room to let the tourists in. That was built to accommodate three million tourists. It still now

01:29isn't enough. There are about eight million tourists going in so Emmanuel Macron has announced there's going

01:34to be another entrance into the Louvre Museum. So you have this mass tourism coming in plus the fact that

01:40you need security on a basis plus you have to look after these jewels that are on show. They need to be

01:47cleaned regularly. They need to be restored often and they need to be protected. Protected not only

01:53against theft but also against fire. Remember what happened to Notre Dame Cathedral. So all of these

01:57elements together have made it maybe much more easy for thieves to break into museums than it would be

02:04to break into a jewellery shop. And it appears that the two men who've been arrested earlier today

02:09are both known to have issues with burglary beforehand. They're already known to the police services in

02:15France. So that's one of the aspects. And the other aspect which has to be on the line is that France

02:19has a huge debt right now and 3.3 trillion euro debt. There is an announcement coming up that there

02:27is going to be less money available for the culture ministry over the next year if the budget that's

02:33currently under discussion in the National Assembly is passed, which means that there'll be less money

02:37available for security for places like the Louvre Museum. So all of these are questions that are on

02:43the forefront of ministers' desks right now. How do you accommodate millions of people into the biggest

02:49museum in the world to see these artefacts, to be able to secure these artefacts against not only

02:56theft from people breaking into the museum but against fire and people coming to look at them in the museum

03:00and at the same time letting them be visible to the general public. So it is a very, very difficult

03:06situation for the public, for the powers in France that be and the head of the Louvre Museum,

03:13Laurence Descartes, to have to work out and to make a decision about. Now, Philip, the Paris prosecutor

03:19is, of course, not happy about the fact that information about the arrest of these two suspects,

03:24which reportedly occurred actually on Saturday night, was leaked. We heard our reporter, Ellen Gainsford,

03:30detail that moments ago. She said they've been quite tight-lipped, even on site there, about the

03:38circumstances surrounding their arrest. What does this suggest about the climate, the general climate

03:44behind this heist? It's interesting that this has been the number one story in France, practically on

03:50the top of all the news bulletins since last Sunday, on the front page of the newspapers every day.

03:54There is this thirst across France for information. There is this desire across France to catch the

04:02thieves, to get the jewels back. People want to know what's going on. Social media, there's the

04:09non-stop news channels, there is the internet. All of these are crying out for information. So if the

04:17slightest bit of information comes out, like we got yesterday, the announcement of the arrest of these

04:20two men, one of them reportedly trying to leave the country from Wasi-Charles-de-Gol airport to go to

04:27Algeria. Reports in the Figaro newspaper saying the other one was trying to get out of the country,

04:31go to Mali. So that is something that I think is upsetting for the police force, because they say,

04:38we don't want to give all this information out. It shouldn't be leaked out to the news and to

04:42journalists, because that will upset our investigation and maybe offer information to the

04:48other suspects in this, which will make it easier for them to abscond or escape or get rid of the

04:53jewels. We need to work on a surprise basis. They don't need to know what's going on. When it's a

04:58story this big, obviously it's going to be something that people want to know about and the information

05:03will be out there. And you have people within the police, I'm not going to name names or whatever,

05:07but who will offer information to journalists off the cuff, behind the scenes to say, we've got

05:12information about this, but it's not official. And that will immediately go onto social media,

05:17onto the internet, or will be broadcast on the air via these 24-hour-a-day news networks. So it's a

05:23very difficult situation for the investigators. That's why we've had this comment by Laure Becquot,

05:28the Paris prosecutor, who's annoyed about the fact that all this news has been given out so quickly

05:34about the arrest of these two suspects, because the other two are still on the run. They would like

05:38to catch those two as well, with the hope that they might be able to get the jury back.

05:42What is interesting is that Lohan Nunes, the interim minister, has actually said that he is still

05:48confident that the jury will be now found. So I think that offers some hope that maybe because of

05:56the enormous amount of investigative work that's taken place, the enormous public interest in all of

06:02this, the thieves will feel that their ability to manoeuvre about, to take this jury out of the

06:08country, is severely handicapped. And that may offer a hope that the jury is still in front and that

06:13the police may eventually get to put their hands on it.

06:16The saga continues then, of course, at least potentially two suspects still at large.

06:22Philip Turrell, thank you very much.

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