The Louvre in Paris remained closed on Monday as police searched for four thieves who stole prized jewellery from the museum a day earlier in a brazen heist that lasted less than 10 minutes.

The robbery of what officials described as priceless jewels stunned France and has raised uncomfortable questions about security at the world’s most famous cultural institution.

“This morning, the French people, for the most part, feel as though they have been robbed,” Gérald Darmanin, France’s justice minister, told France Inter radio on Monday. “In the same way that when Notre-Dame burned, it was our church that was burning — even if you weren’t Catholic — such an incredible jewellery robbery at the Louvre looks bad.”

“We cannot completely secure all locations,” Darmanin added. “But what is certain is that we have failed.”

The Louvre, a former royal palace that was transformed into a museum after the French Revolution, is a cultural calling card for France that attracts throngs of tourists every day and houses more than 33,000 works of art in a labyrinth of wings and courtyards.

The museum said on Monday that it would remain closed “following yesterday’s robbery” and that visitors who had already booked tickets would get a refund. French media had previously reported that the museum would open, and it was not immediately clear what had prompted the change.

President Emmanuel Macron of France vowed that the thieves would be caught. The French interior and culture ministers held a crisis meeting on Monday about the robbery — a sign of how seriously French authorities were taking the situation.

Working in broad daylight just 30 minutes after the Louvre had opened, masked thieves used an electric ladder and grinders to break into the second-floor Apollo Gallery, which contains France’s historic collection of crown jewels, the authorities said.

The thieves fled on motor scooters with eight precious pieces of jewellery including a royal sapphire necklace, a royal emerald necklace and its matching earrings, and a diadem worn by Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, France’s 19th-century ruler.

Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, told the BFMTV channel on Sunday evening that the thieves did not appear to be armed but had threatened the museum’s security agents, who quickly evacuated a handful of visitors.

New York Times News Service