The Louvre Museum in Paris has reopened three days after jewellery worth 88 million euros (£76m; $102m) was stolen in a brazen daylight robbery.
Visitors were welcomed back to the Louvre from 09:00 local time (07:00 GMT) on Wednesday, but the museum said its Apollo Gallery – where the heist took place – remained closed.
Thieves wielding power tools took less than eight minutes to break into the world’s most-visited museum and make off with the loot on scooters on Sunday morning. They have not yet been caught.
President Emmanuel Macron urged ministers to speed up the introduction of security measures at the Louvre as it reopened, a government spokeswoman said.
“We failed to protect these jewels”, the museum’s director Laurence des Cars told the French Senate’s culture committee on Wednesday afternoon.
She highlighted the Louvre’s “real structural issues”, and said she would like to close parts of museum for refurbishment to make it more secure.
Museums “are not and never will be fortresses – they are by their very nature open,” she said.
This was the first time the director spoke publicly about the robbery, which Macron has described as an attack on the country’s heritage.
A preliminary report found one in three rooms in the Louvre lacked CCTV and that its wider alarm system did not go off. Security measures have been tightened at cultural institutions across France as a result.
Senator Nathalie Goulet previously told the BBC the gallery’s alarm had recently been broken and that the police investigation might reveal whether it had been deactivated.
The culture ministry said the museum’s wider alarms did sound, and staff followed protocol by contacting security forces and protecting visitors.
The museum shut its doors after the daring heist, telling visitors who had booked ahead of time that they would be refunded.
Among them was Benjamin Carbajal from Peru, who told the Reuters news agency it was a “shame” to have his ticket cancelled but that he understood “what happened is serious and the museum has also taken the necessary measures”.
Meanwhile, tens of investigators have been working to catch the criminals.
Four masked thieves used a truck with a set of mechanical ladders mounted on it to gain access to the Gallery of Apollo via a balcony close to the River Seine at 09:30 on Sunday.
Two of them cut through a glass window on the first floor using a battery-powered disc cutter and entered the museum.
They then threatened the guards inside, who evacuated the building, and cut through the glass of two display cases containing jewels.
The thieves had tried to set fire to their vehicle outside but were prevented by the intervention of a member of museum staff. They were seen making off on scooters at 09:38.
The loot includes a diamond and emerald necklace Emperor Napoleon gave to his wife, a tiara worn by Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, and several pieces previously owned by Queen Marie-Amelie.
Investigators also found a damaged crown that used to belong to Empress Eugenie on the thieves’ escape route – thought to have been dropped as they escaped.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told France’s Europe1 on Wednesday that he had “every confidence” the thieves would be caught.
Prosecutors have said their theory is that the robbers were under orders for a criminal organisation.
