New Louvre Chief Is a Familiar Face

UPDATE Feb 25, 2026 7:55 AM CST

France is tapping a familiar face to steady its most famous museum. Christophe Leribault, current chief of the Palace of Versailles and a former deputy director at the Louvre, has been named by President Emmanuel Macron to lead the Louvre after its director resigned Tuesday in the wake of a spectacular jewel theft. Leribault, 62, is an 18th-century art specialist who has also run the Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie; he headed the Louvre's department of graphic arts from 2006 to 2012, reports the Guardian. The culture ministry said his top job will be protecting the building, its collections, and visitors while driving long-delayed modernization.

Feb 24, 2026 4:33 PM CST

The Louvre Museum's director resigned Tuesday, ending months of questions in France's cultural world over why no top official had stepped down after the October crown jewels theft. Laurence des Cars' departure closed a bruising chapter for the world's biggest museum. It came as the Louvre faces a widening narrative of an institution spiraling out of control, the AP reports. In the last year alone, the museum has endured the high-profile jewels theft from the Apollo Gallery, water leaks that damaged priceless books, multiple staff walkouts and a wildcat strike over poor working conditions, mass tourism, and understaffing.

That scrutiny intensified again in recent weeks, when French authorities revealed a suspected decadelong ticket fraud scheme—carried out under their noses— =linked to the museum that investigators say may have cost the Louvre around $12 million. President Emmanuel Macron accepted des Cars' resignation as "an act of responsibility" at a moment when the Louvre needs "calm" and new momentum for security upgrades, modernization, and other major projects, according to a statement from his office.

Macron wants to give des Cars a new mission during France's presidency of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, focused on cooperation among major museums, the statement said. For many in France's cultural world, the resignation answers months of head-scratching over why no top official had fallen after the heist: a daylight robbery that many here saw as the most humiliating breach of French heritage security in living memory.

• Thieves took less than eight minutes in October to steal crown jewels valued at $102 million from the Louvre, in a weekend operation that stunned visitors, exposed glaring vulnerabilities, and left one of France's most symbolically charged collections in criminal hands. Several suspects were later arrested, but the stolen pieces remain missing.
• Des Cars, one of the most prominent museum directors in Europe, offered to resign on the day of the robbery, but it was initially refused by the culture minister.
• In remarks after the theft, she described the moment as a "tragic, brutal, violent reality" for the Louvre and said that, as the person in charge, it had felt right to offer her resignation. She had led the Louvre since 2021, taking over one of the global museum world's most prestigious jobs at a time when the museum was still navigating the aftershocks of the pandemic and the return of mass tourism.