The Apollo Gallery, Louis XIV’s ornate reception hall that was the site of the Louvre heist in October last year, will reopen to the public in July. It will do so, however, without its display cases packed with the Sun King’s precious minerals. Those will be moved to the Louvre’s Richelieu wing, allowing for the Romantic wall paintings of Apollo to speak for themselves, thereby turning the space into the museum’s very own version of Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors.
This is the vision, at least, of the Louvre’s new director Christophe Leribault, who is familiar with the Palace of Versailles having been its president until February of this year. With the search for France’s crown jewels still ongoing (five people have been charged without disclosing the whereabouts of the treasures), plans are afoot for a new display of Empress Eugénie’s diamond-and-emerald crown. It was dropped and crushed by the thieves in their haste to escape and is currently being restored (only 10 of the more than 1,300 diamonds were lost). In time, Leribault recently told Le Monde, the crown Emperor Napoleon III commissioned for his wife will become a new highlight, one only surpassed by the Mona Lisa.
Empress Eugénie’s crown, deformed during the theft in the Apollo Gallery on October 19, 2025. Photo by Thomas Clot, ©Louvre Museum.
“The theft highlighted one particular risk, but dangers come in many forms. The terrorist threat, activists’ demands, fire safety vigilance, and now cybersecurity,” Leribault said in a sit-down interview with the French newspaper, published on May 5. “The Louvre is the equivalent of a Paris neighborhood, all of it listed as a historic monument. Installing cameras and detectors is not enough. That has to be done, of course, but in coordination with other complex and lengthy infrastructure works.”
The $100 million heist was a grave embarrassment to the world’s most-visited museum, with critics noting that less than five percent of the more than €80 million ($94 million) allocated to security had been properly invested. In response, the Louvre has placed security bars on the Apollo Gallery’s windows, promised to install 100 new surveillance cameras by the end of 2026, created a mobile police station for peak visitor periods, and hired a new security coordinator—moves which Leribault confirmed.
Still, the measures were not enough to placate public and political pressure, and Laurence des Cars, the Louvre’s first female director, resigned in February.
Visitors take pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (La Joconde) painting, at the Louvre Museum, in Paris, on April 17, 2024. Photo: by Antonin UTZ / AFP via Getty Images.
In some ways, the theft was merely a symbol the museum’s crumbling infrastructure, a problem des Cars was in the process of addressing through the Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance plan, which was announced by French president Emmanuel Macron in January 2025.
The multiyear, €1-billion ($1.2-billion) project encompasses fixing basic infrastructure, such as roofing and heating systems, as well as sexier items such as creating custom-built room to exclusively display the Mona Lisa and building a new Seine-side entrance to alleviate pressure on I.M. Pei‘s glass pyramid. Leribault confirmed that the winner of the architectural competition would belatedly be announced on May 13 and anticipated that construction would not start before 2028.
In the meantime, Leribault noted that the museum’s collection of ancient Greek vases were being moved from the Campana Gallery as it’s being restored, the escalators in the Richelieu wing are being renovated, and all of the offices from two wings of the museum are being relocated amid repairs. While some of the Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance plan is being funded by price hikes for non-E.U. visitors and private donations, some French politicians have balked at the price tag.
“The cost cannot be reduced any further,” Leribault said. “We can try to adjust certain aspects, consider scaling back some of the planned developments, and we will, but the overall savings will remain marginal.”
Museum staff stage a protest as workers voted to go on strike against increasingly deteriorating working conditions and security vulnerabilities at Louvre Museum in Paris, France on December 15, 2025. Photo: Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed/Anadolu via Getty Images.
Another crisis that des Cars faced was the deep dissatisfaction among the Louvre’s workforce. In June last year, staff staged a walkout to protest overcrowding and deteriorating working conditions. Arguing that the museum continues to prioritize its high-profile expansions over less visible work, the action was repeated in December and January of this year, briefly forcing much of the museum to close.
In his interview, Leribault said he sees improving visitor conditions as a means of improving worker conditions and that he had begun meeting with staff representatives. In addition to reviewing workload plans, he noted that staff break rooms are being renovated.
One area in which Leribault staked a position that differs from those of his predecessors was in the field of acquisitions. At present, the Louvre is required to allocate 20 percent of its ticket sales to buy artwork. The new director is proposing reducing this portion to 12 percent and using the difference to fund renovations. Contemporary art is set to miss out.
“We need to be able to prioritize, renovation work is at the top of our list,” Leribault said. “The Louvre is entering a period of transformation that will require energy, time, and focus from our teams. The presence of contemporary art will no doubt be more sporadic in the coming years.”
