Macron appoints new head of crisis-hit Louvre after jewellery heist

Christophe Leribault, most recently Versailles director, will be tasked with improving security and ‘restoring climate of trust’

France has appointed Christophe Leribault as the new head of the Louvre, bringing in the director of the Palace of Versailles to turn around the world’s most visited museum after a humiliating jewellery heist and staff strikes.

Leribault, who was chosen by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, will succeed Laurence des Cars, who resigned on Tuesday. Des Cars had faced intense criticism since burglars made off in October with jewels worth an estimated $102m, exposing glaring security gaps at the museum. The jewels are still missing.

The culture ministry said in a statement: “Leribault’s priority will be to strengthen the safety and security of the building, the collections, and people, to restore a climate of trust, and to carry forward, together with all the teams, the necessary transformations for the museum.”

Leribault, 62, is an art historian specialising in the 18th century who previously led the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie, both in Paris, before taking over at Versailles in 2024. He will leave the Versailles job to take up the Louvre role.

He was deputy director of the Louvre’s department of graphic arts from 2006 to 2012, the ministry said.

Strikes over pay and work conditions have repeatedly shut the Louvre since mid-December, while water leaks and an alleged ticket fraud scheme that prosecutors say siphoned more than €10m over a decade have also cast a shadow over one of Paris’s top tourist attractions.

A state auditors’ report last year urged management at the Louvre, home to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, to redirect spending from acquisitions to overdue security and infrastructure upgrades.

The report highlighted persistent delays in the deployment of security equipment, saying only 39% of rooms in the vast museum – which had more than 8.7 million visitors last year – had been fitted with CCTV cameras as of 2024.

A more recent parliamentary inquiry called the Louvre a “state within a state”. The inquiry’s chair, Alexandre Portier, said the burglary had revealed “systemic failures”, “a denial of risk” and a management that was “currently failing”.

As Des Cars, 59, resigned on Tuesday, Macron’s office said the museum needed “calm and a strong new impetus to successfully carry out major projects involving security and modernisation”.

Des Cars, who was appointed in 2021, acknowledged a “terrible failure” days after the burglary, admitting that security camera coverage of the museum’s outside walls was “highly inadequate” and adding: “Despite our hard work, we failed.”

Reuters contributed to this article.