Macron appoints a new president for the Louvre Museum, which was affected by the crisis after a jewelry theft Paris

France has appointed Christophe Léribault as the new head of the Louvre Museum, appointing the director of the Palace of Versailles to restructure the world’s most visited museum after a humiliating jewelery theft and staff strikes.

Léribault, chosen by French President Emmanuel Macron, will succeed Laurence De Carre, who resigned on Tuesday. The Des Cars Museum has faced intense criticism since thieves stole jewelry worth an estimated $102 million in October, revealing glaring security lapses at the museum. Gems are still missing.

“Liribault’s priority will be to strengthen the safety and security of the building, the collections and the people, to restore a climate of trust, and to move forward, together with all teams, with the necessary transformations of the museum,” the Ministry of Culture said in a statement.

Léribault, 62, is an art historian who specializes in the 18th century and previously headed the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée d’Orangerie, both in Paris, before taking over the Versailles job in 2024. He will leave the Versailles job to take up the role of the Louvre.

The ministry said that he was deputy director of the graphic arts department at the Louvre Museum from 2006 to 2012.

Strikes over wages and working conditions have closed the Louvre repeatedly since mid-December, while water leaks and an alleged ticket fraud scheme, which prosecutors say embezzled more than 10 million euros over a decade, have cast a shadow over one of Paris’s top tourist attractions.

A state auditors’ report last year urged management of the Louvre Museum, home of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, to redirect spending from acquisitions to long-overdue security and infrastructure upgrades.

The report highlighted ongoing delays in the deployment of security equipment, saying that only 39% of rooms in the massive museum – which welcomed more than 8.7 million visitors last year – were equipped with CCTV cameras as of 2024.

A more recent parliamentary inquiry described the Louvre as a “state within a state”. The head of the investigation, Alexandre Portier, said the burglary revealed “systemic failures”, “denial of risks” and “currently failing” management.

With the resignation of Des Cars, 59, on Tuesday, Macron’s office said the museum needed “calm and a strong new momentum to successfully implement major projects related to security and modernization.”

Des Cars, who was appointed in 2021, admitted the “fiasco” days after the robbery, admitting that security camera coverage of the museum’s exterior walls was “grossly inadequate” and adding: “Despite our hard work, we failed.”

Reuters contributed to this article.