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PARIS -- The Louvre's director on Wednesday acknowledged a "terrible failure" at the Paris tourist attraction after a daylight crown jewel heist over the weekend, and said that she offered to resign. The world's most-visited museum reopened earlier in the day to long lines beneath its landmark glass pyramid for the first time since one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale. In testimony to the French Senate, Louvre Director Laurence des Cars said that the museum had a shortage of security cameras outside the monument and other "weaknesses" exposed by Sunday's theft. Under heavy pressure over a heist that stained France's global image, she testified to a Senate committee that she submitted her resignation, but that the culture minister refused to accept it. "Today we are experiencing a terrible failure at the Louvre, which I take my share of responsibility in," she said. The thieves slipped in and out, making off with eight pieces from France's Crown Jewels -- a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019. The theft -- steps away from the "Mona Lisa" and valued at more than $100 million -- has put embattled President Emmanuel Macron, Culture Minister Rachida Dati, des Cars and others under new scrutiny. It comes just months after employees went on strike, warning of chronic understaffing and not enough resources for protection, with too few eyes on too many rooms. Des Cars said the museum's alarms had worked properly, but it currently doesn't have full video surveillance of the perimeter outside the museum, though there is a plan to provide full coverage of all the Louvre's facades. She also suggested barriers to prevent vehicles from parking directly alongside the museum's buildings, and said that she would push for a police station inside the museum, which welcomes 30,000 visitors a day and 2,300 workers. Three days on, the jewels remain missing and the thieves are still at large. Authorities say the thieves spent less than four minutes inside the Louvre on Sunday morning: a freight lift was wheeled to the Seine-facing facade, a window was forced open and two vitrines were smashed. Then came the getaway on motorbikes through central Paris. Alarms had gone off, drawing agents to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt. The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense. They also made off with an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte's second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie's diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch -- an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship -- were also part of the loot. One piece -- Eugénie's emerald-set imperial crown, with more than 1,300 diamonds -- was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable. Prosecutor Laure Beccuau valued the haul at about $102 million, a "spectacular" figure that still fails to capture the works' historical weight. She warned that the thieves would be unlikely to realize anything close to that sum if they pry out stones or melt the metals -- a fate curators fear would pulverize centuries of meaning into anonymous gems for the black market.
