Who doesn’t Louvre a good heist story? Whether it be the largest diamond heist ever documented, the Antwerp Diamond heist, which took place in Belgium in 2003, or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Robbery, which occurred in Massachusetts in 1990. Through all of this, it is very apparent that people are invested in these cases; it’s human nature to be drawn to this kind of story, which is why true crime has such a large following. 

     The Louvre is a famous museum in France that houses some of the most well-known and most expensive works of art. On Oct. 19, it faced a very costly robbery. The thieves stole approximately $102 million worth of jewels. The four perpetrators have been arrested.  Their names are yet to be released to the public, though it is currently unknown whether any additional suspects were involved. The robbers spent around eight minutes stealing well-known jewels, including a sapphire diadem (tiara/crown) and reliquary and corsage bow brooches (a decorative piece of jewelry that uses a pin and a clasp to attach to clothing). The heist also included the disappearance of a necklace, a pair of earrings which were tied to Empress Marie Louise, a single earring from the set of Queens Marie and Hortense, and the Tiara of former Empress Eugenie. There have been many conspiracies surrounding the event, with many people assuming that the robbers were planning this for a very long time, or that this is not their first instance of stealing; it would be almost impossible for it to be a spur-of-the-moment idea, taking a lot of planning and knowing the ropes of robbery.  It seems that only the police are taking the theft seriously.

     Many users on social media have been making jokes about this heist and even hyping up the robbers. One user on TikTok said, ”They didn’t do anything wrong; they’re not hurting anyone.” Though the commenter is not entirely incorrect, what the Louvre robbers did was obviously incorrect for multiple reasons; you can’t just steal valuable objects, or anything for that matter. But on the other hand, the Louvre robbers did not directly hurt anyone, as the perpetrators used no physical violence. They didn’t use guns, which is extremely rare in heists of this magnitude. 

     Many other users have made fan edits of the robbers/the stolen jewels, justifying their acts because they are “attractive.” This is nothing new in crime cases; many people will justify a criminal’s actions only because they think they are attractive. Some even go so far as to idolize them, wanting to be just like them, to the point of recreating the crime the person committed. Even the people of France have been making jokes, asking whether the security guards were sleeping during the heist or if the security password for the museum was “Louvre.”

     Many people are not worried about the heist because, as a society, we have way bigger problems to worry about. With issues all over the world like genocides and starvation, it is clear as day that worse atrocities are going on. Jewelry is the least of anyone’s worries right now. It is almost impossible to care about the Louvre when the heinous acts happening all over the globe aren’t getting fixed. We, as a society, rarely have a majority agree on anything; it’s always disagreement, whether it’s religion or politics. It’s hard to get a group of people on the same page, but the Louvre heist was a unifying event for citizens around the globe. The museum heist has brought the world together in a weird way.