A gallery attendant on duty at the Louvre when thieves broke in and stole eight of France's crown jewels has said no-one could have been prepared for what unfolded as visitors began to arrive on Sunday morning.
All of a sudden we heard an huge noise, she told radio station France Inter, in the first account given by an attendant at the scene.
The unnamed attendant and two colleagues initially thought the noise to be an angry visitor, but it was not a normal sound: It was a dull, slightly metallic noise. It was, in fact, the moment thieves had used an angle grinder to burst through a reinforced window into the Gallery of Apollo, where the Louvre's collection of historic jewelry is kept.
Within eight minutes, the gang seized treasures, including a necklace that belonged to Napoleon's wife Empress Marie-Louise and a diadem of Napoleon III's wife Empress Eugenie, worth an estimated total of €88m (£77m).
The thieves used a mechanical ladder on the back of a lorry to lift them to a first-floor balcony to gain entry to the gallery.
Two tourists ran towards them in panic, she said. I saw one of the criminals turn around with something that looked to me like a chainsaw, then I yelled at my colleagues to get out, she recalled. She shouted a second time that it was a robbery and that they should run.
One of her colleagues raised the alarm over a walkie-talkie and then we finished evacuating the visits without quite realizing really what was going on. They shut all the doors as they left to protect the neighboring galleries.
On reflection, the attendant said for us, it was unbelievable the display cases could have been broken... never for a moment did we think there was such a risk... nobody can be prepared for that.
Another Louvre employee described the moments after the gang escaped. The anonymous security guard noted a very strong smell of petrol as he arrived at the scene outside the Louvre where the gang had parked their lorry.
The gang had ruptured the lorry's fuel tank and there was a blowtorch nearby, indicating their intent to set fire to the vehicle. I genuinely think we thwarted their plan because they would never have left behind so much evidence, he said.
Security measures at the Louvre are under scrutiny following this incident, with museum director Laurence des Cars confirming the empress's crown appeared damaged during the escape. She stated that initial indications showed that delicate restoration might be possible.
The attendant's experience highlights growing concerns about the museum's security culture, with statements reflecting years of underfunding and criticism over inadequate surveillance measures.
