Theft at the Louvre Becomes a Metaphor for France Herself

The theft at the Louvre museum on October 19 wasn’t just a crime — it was a metaphor for France’s self-sabotage. Four men dressed as construction workers made off with one hundred million dollars worth of historical jewels dating back to the Napoleonic era in a brazen mid-morning heist at the famed museum. The country’s national treasures were displayed under breakable glass in a room not fully surveilled in a building anyone could drive right up to with the most conspicuous vehicle imaginable — short of the Batmobile. The thieves weren’t invited in, but they weren’t given much reason to think breaking in was a bad bet.Everything short of a “right this way” sign seemed to direct them toward spectacular success. That must be how migrant smugglers have felt all these years as French law prevented the police from intercepting small boats of incoming illegal migrants off their shores. France wasn’t asking for human traffickers to bring tens of thousands of people into the country every year, but it wasn’t working very hard to prevent them from doing so either. The French government has also done little to enforce deportation orders of those who either illegally entered the country or overstayed their visas. Historically France has had a deportation enforcement rate of just 10 percent to 16 percent of orders issued. Perhaps the Louvre thieves calculated they had only a 16 percent chance of being arrested outside the museum before the heist, and liked their odds too.At Paris last week, I asked my taxi driver what he thought of the Louvre story. In broken English he called the thieves “invaders.” He probably meant to say “intruders” but he chose a better word, even if accidentally. In the metaphor of the Louvre, “invaders” are breaking in every day and stealing bits of French national identity, one precious jewel at a time — and authorities are making it too easy for them.Liberty has long been the crown jewel of France and “invaders” with no regard for the culture and traditions of Western Europe are no less stealing it away from the French people than the thieves of the Louvre stole Queen Marie-Amelie’s sapphire and diamond diadem. They have stolen free speech from the editors at Charlie Hebdo, freedom of religion from French Jews, and freedom of assembly from gay men at the Bataclan Theatre. They took away the right of the citizens of Nice to celebrate Bastille Day without the fear of being run over by a car, and eliminated the authority of French law in certain “zones” of the country. This is a much worse kind of theft than the Louvre experienced — at least there is hope that the emerald earrings of Napoleon’s second wife might be returned. Twelve-year-old Lola Daviet, raped and murdered by an Algerian woman who overstayed her French visa and was free to kill because French immigration officials failed to send her to a detention center before deportation, will never return home.All the Louvre needed to prevent the theft was an extra video camera and some common sense. That they didn’t insist on either is a shocking part of the story. Or, maybe it isn’t shocking if we consider that the French government has placed so little value on its cultural identity and its citizens’ interests that it has allowed just about anyone to walk right in, take up residence, and rob the country of its national treasures. All it needed to prevent the invasion was national pride. Tragically, there was as little energy for that as there was budget for that missing video camera on the balcony outside the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre.The damaged crown of Princess Eugenie found dropped on the street after the thieves fled the Louvre is a metaphor as well — for the broken, once regal, identity of the French people tossed to the ground like so much trash by invaders who weren’t stopped at the gate.

Theft at the Louvre Becomes a Metaphor for France Herself

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