The Louvre’s Broken Window Becomes Paris’s Newest Tourist Attraction

What began as a crime scene is now one of Paris’s most unusual attractions. Days after thieves climbed a ladder to break into the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery and steal Napoleonic-era jewels worth about $95 million, visitors are crowding outside the museum — not for Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but for the balcony window the robbers smashed.

The Louvre reopened to long queues this week, yet many tourists now stop across the Seine, photographing the boarded-up window behind which one of Europe’s boldest heists unfolded.

Museum director Laurence des Cars told France’s Senate that the balcony had no security cameras covering it — a “terrible” oversight that exposed outdated surveillance systems dating back to the 1980s.

She acknowledged “obsolete, even absent, technical infrastructure,” and offered her resignation, which was rejected.

The revelation has renewed debate about under-investment in France’s cultural institutions and the vulnerability of major heritage sites. More than 100 investigators remain on the case, but for now, the broken glass itself has become the Louvre’s newest attraction.