00:00Hours after what many are calling the heist of the century, Hisham Dawoud, a political
00:05anthropology researcher at France's National Center for Scientific Research, reflected on
00:10the deeper implications of the theft. France may have recovered its most valuable artifact,
00:16Dawoud said, but what was wounded today cannot be healed by reclaiming a mere object.
00:22What was shaken was the belief that the symbols of the French nation are untouchable,
00:27that the pride of an entire country could not be threatened in a matter of minutes.
00:32He continued, the crown has returned to the Louvre and may soon shine again, and perhaps
00:38the remaining stolen pieces will be recovered. But the image of that crown lying abandoned
00:43on the roadside will haunt the national memory. Deep down, the French fear that one day their
00:49country could resemble that crown, stripped of pride, of grandeur, and of protection.
00:54You know, everybody, the newspaper reported that something very, very easy, and then the
01:05jewelry is lost forever. It's part of organized crime, and we will never find them.
01:13Those jewels are considered to be national treasures, and who would dare do this in front of everybody
01:20and steal them. So museums are behind in their thinking. They got it more or less backwards.
01:28And there is another problem that when you steal from a museum, you know, you have to dispose of the
01:36artwork on the black market. So these jewels will have to be cut and transformed in order to be sold.
01:44And there is another problem, since it's a national affront. They have a hundred police working on this.
01:52I mean, for a jewelry store, you wouldn't necessarily have that many police.
01:55So it's really very counterintuitive, and it's just this illusion of ease that the criminals saw,
02:04which made them try such a thing after a whole series.
02:08But after this, I think the French museum world will change completely.
02:14I was at another museum when it happened, and I saw the guards got nervous and started walking around
02:19Napoleon's sword. So there's going to be a reaction.
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