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The Apollo Gallery of the Louvre Museum in Paris, where thieves stole French crown jewels valued at $102 million in a brazen 2025 heist, is set to reopen to the public on Wednesday, an informed source told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
No jewelry will be on display when the gallery reopens. Instead, the space will revert to its original 17th-century function as a state gallery, the source said, confirming an earlier report in the newspaper Le Parisien. French Culture Minister Catherine Pegard is expected to attend the reopening.
The museum's president, Christophe Leribault, told Le Parisien that the collections and precious objects previously displayed in the gallery have been removed.
For jewelry not stolen in the heist, the museum plans to build a secure, windowless vault in another part of the building, though the location and funding for the project have not yet been finalized, according to Leribault.
Robbers disguised as construction workers broke into the gallery on the morning of October 19, 2025, using a truck-mounted lift to reach a window.
The thieves smashed display cases and made off with eight crown jewels, once belonging to French royals including Empress Eugenie, in under 10 minutes. The jewels remain missing.
The theft exposed major security lapses at the world's most-visited museum, which draws roughly 9 million visitors annually, and triggered an internal crisis that led to the replacement of then-president Laurence des Cars by Leribault.
A French parliamentary commission on museum security found in May that security concerns at the Louvre had been deprioritized in recent years.
The investigation has continued to widen since the heist. French authorities have arrested at least 11 people and charged five in connection with the theft, though the jewels have not been located.
Two of the men indicted on organized robbery charges told investigating judges in June that they had been recruited by an unnamed sponsor days before the theft, according to court statements reported by Le Monde.
That account has pushed investigators to pursue leads in Belgium, home to a major diamond trading hub, as they work to determine whether a broader network commissioned the theft.
No timeline has been given for when, or whether, the missing jewels might be recovered.
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