A water leak damaged several hundred publications stored within the Louvre‘s Egyptian antiquities library, mere weeks after a brazen daylight heist humiliated officials on the world’s most-visited museum.
The leak, which occurred on Nov. 26, damaged works including revues and documents from the Nineteenth and twentieth century, the museum told France 24 on Dec. 7. It was brought on by the opening of a valve in a network of water pipes which can be resulting from get replaced next yr.
The museum’s deputy administrator Francis Steinbock described the damaged works as “Egyptology journals” and “scientific documentation” utilized by researchers.
“No heritage artifacts have been affected by this damage,” he said, adding that “at this stage, we’ve no irreparable and definitive losses in these collections.”
The museum administrator said the “completely obsolete” water system has been shut down and is resulting from get replaced in September 2026.
The Louvre said there can be an internal investigation into the leak.
Steinbock said that the works can be “dried, sent to a bookbinder to be restored after which returned to the shelves.”
The incident follows the October heist when thieves, within the span of eight minutes, made off with previous items valued at greater than $100 million. After the heist, Paris prosecutors arrested 4 men they said they believed to be a part of the robbery team.
In late November, two men and two women were taken into custody. They’re from the Paris region and range in age from 31 to 40, said the prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose office is heading the investigation.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and world wide, enroll for breaking news alerts delivered on to you after they occur.
French media report that considered one of those arrested, a 39-year-old already known to police, is believed to be the fourth member of the team thought to have carried out the daring robbery. The suspect is from Aubervilliers, a suburb north of Paris other suspects have connections with.
The opposite three alleged members of the so-called “commando” team have been previously arrested and face preliminary charges of theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy. Their DNA has been found on the scene or on items linked to the robbery.
The museum director subsequently acknowledged a “terrible failure” in security. The thieves forced their way into the museum using a cherry picker to achieve considered one of the constructing’s windows, angle grinders to chop into jewelry display cases and motorbikes to make their escape.
The loot still hasn’t been recovered. It features a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to Nineteenth-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
This photograph shows the ‘parure de la reine Marie-Amelie et de la Reine Hortense’ (set of knickknack of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense) displayed at Apollon’s Gallery on Jan. 14, 2020 on the Louvre museum in Paris after the reopening of the Gallery following ten months of renovations.
STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images
On Monday, employees on the Louvre voted for strikes to protest their work conditions, a ticket-price hike for non-European visitors and security weaknesses highlighted by the October theft. The strike is scheduled to start out Dec. 15.
In a letter to Culture Minister Rachida Dati announcing the strike motion and seen by The Associated Press, the CGT, CFDT and Sud unions asserted that “visiting the Louvre has turn out to be an actual obstacle course” for the thousands and thousands of people that come to admire its huge collections of art and artifacts.
The museum is in “crisis,” with insufficient resources and “increasingly deteriorated working conditions,” the unions wrote, also saying the “theft of 19 October 2025 highlighted shortcomings in priorities that had long been reported.”
Last month, the Louvre also announced the temporary closure of some employees’ offices and one public gallery due to weakened floor beams.
Of their strike notice, the unions said that antiquated facilities and insufficient staffing are impacting the visitor experience, forcing the closure of some displays. They demanded that resources be focused on constructing improvements and safeguarding the museum, its collections, visitors and employees.
The union can also be asking for 200 latest jobs to be created for security and visitor services “the equivalent of what we lost between 2014 and today,” CGT union representative Christian Galani told France 24.
In an announcement posted on LinkedIn, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor said that the leak is the most recent incident that shows another sign that the museum has been “deteriorating for too long.”
“Fragile infrastructure, lack of strategic visibility on the work, degraded working conditions: the protection of the collections in addition to the security of agents and visitors remain insufficiently guaranteed. As well as, there may be a transparent deterioration in social dialogue, which prevents the anticipation of risks and the development of solutions with the teams,” the statement added.
—With files from The Associated Press
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.