PARIS: As French police race to track where the Louvre’s stolen crown jewels have gone, a growing chorus wants a brighter light on where they came from.
The artifacts were French, but the gems were not. Their exotic routes to Paris run through the shadows of empire — an uncomfortable history that France, like other Western nations with treasure-filled museums, has only begun to confront.
The attention sparked by the heist is an opportunity, experts say, to pressure the Louvre and Europe’s great museums to explain their collections’ origins more honestly, and it could trigger a broader reckoning over restitutions.
Within hours of the theft, researchers sketched a likely colonial-era map for the materials: sapphires from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), diamonds from India and Brazil, pearls from the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean and emeralds from Colombia.
That doesn’t make the Louvre robbery less criminal. It does complicate the public’s understanding of what was lost.
“There is obviously no excuse for theft,” said Emiline C.H. Smith, a criminologist at the University of Glasgow who studies heritage crime. “But many of these objects are entangled with violent, exploitative, colonial histories.”
While there’s no credible evidence these specific gems were stolen — experts say that doesn’t end the argument: What was legal in the imperial age could still mean plunder in today’s lights. In other words, the paperwork of empire doesn’t settle the ethics.
Meanwhile, the heist investigation grinds on. Police have charged suspects, but investigators fear the jewels could be broken up or melted down. They are too famous to sell as they are, but easy to monetize for metal and stones.
Colonial-era jewels ‘made in France’
The Louvre provides scant information about how the gems in the French crown jewels – showcased in the Apollo Gallery until the theft — were originally extracted.
For example, the Louvre’s own catalog describes the stolen diadem of Queen Marie-Amélie as set with “Ceylon sapphires” in their natural, unheated state, bordered with diamonds in gold. It says nothing about who mined them, how they moved, or under what terms they were taken.
Provenance isn’t always a neutral ledger in Western museums. They sometimes “avoid spotlighting uncomfortable acquisition histories,” Smith said, adding that the lack of clarity about the gems’ origins is likely no accident.
The museum did not respond to requests for comment.
The stolen tiaras, necklaces and brooches were crafted in Paris by elite ateliers, and once belonged to 19th-century figures such as Marie-Amélie, Queen Hortense, and the wives of two Napoleons, Empress Marie-Louise of Austria and Empress Eugénie. Their raw materials, however, moved through imperial networks that converted global labor, resources — and even slavery — into European prestige, experts say.
Pascal Blanchard, a historian of France’s colonial past, draws a line between craftsmanship and supply. The jewels “were made in France by French artisans,” he said, but many stones came via colonial circuits and were “products of colonial production.” They were traded “under the legal conditions … of the time,” ones shaped by empires that siphoned wealth from Africa, Asia and South America.
Some French critics press the point further. They argue that national outcry over loss should sit beside the history of how imperial France acquired the stones that court jewelers later set in gold.
India and the British crown’s Koh-i-Noor
India is waging the best-known battle over a single colonial-era treasure — the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
India has repeatedly pressed the UK to return the mythologized 106-carat jewel, now set in the Queen Mother’s crown at the Tower of London. It likely originated in India’s Golconda diamond belt — much like the Louvre’s dazzling Regent diamond, one that was also legally acquired in imperial times and spared by the Oct. 19 robbers.
The Koh-i-Noor passed from court to court before landing in British hands, where it is hailed in London as a “lawful” imperial gift and denounced in India as a prize taken under the shadow of conquest. A 2017 petition to India’s Supreme Court seeking its return was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, but the political and moral dispute endures.
France is not Britain, and the Koh-i-Noor is not the Louvre’s story. But it frames the questions increasingly applied to 19th-century acquisitions: not only “was it bought?” but “who had the power to sell?” On that measure, experts say, even jewels made in France can be considered products of colonial extraction.
The Louvre case lands in a world already primed by other fights. Greece presses Britain to reunite the Parthenon Marbles. Egypt campaigns for the Rosetta Stone in London and the Nefertiti bust in Berlin.
France has acted haltingly on restitutions
France has moved — narrowly. President Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to return parts of Africa’s heritage produced a law enabling the return of 26 royal treasures to Benin and items to Senegal. Madagascar recovered the crown of Queen Ranavalona III through a specific process.
Critics say restitution is structurally blocked: French law forbids removing state-held objects unless Parliament makes a special exception, and risk-averse museums keep the rest behind glass.
They also say that under former Louvre chief Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum’s narrow definition of what counts as “looted” — and its demand for near-legal levels of proof — created a chilling effect on restitution claims, even as the museum publicly praised transparency. (The Louvre says it follows the law and academic standards.)
Colonialism is a thorny issue for Western museums
Asking museum visitors to marvel at artifacts like the French crown jewels without understanding their social history is dishonest, says Erin L. Thompson, an art-crime scholar in New York. A decolonized approach, she and others argue, would name where such stones came from, how the trade worked, who profited and who paid — and share authorship with origin communities.
Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna calls the contradiction glaring.
“Yes, the irony is profound,” she said of the outcry over last month’s Louvre theft, “and it’s central to the conversation about restitution.” She expects the heist will trigger action on restitutions across Western museums and fuel debate about transparency.
At a minimum, Hanna and other experts say, what’s needed from museums are stronger words: plain-spoken labels and wall texts that acknowledge where objects came from, how they moved, and at whose expense. It would mean publishing what is known, admitting what isn’t, and inviting contested histories into the gallery — even when they cloud the shine.
Some offer a practical path.
“Tell the honest and complete story,” said Dutch restitution specialist Jos van Beurden. “Open the windows, not for thieves, but for fresh air.”
France mourns its stolen crown jewels as their uncomfortable colonial past returns to view
https://arab.news/8jdk5
France mourns its stolen crown jewels as their uncomfortable colonial past returns to view
- “There is obviously no excuse for theft,” said Emiline C.H. Smith, a criminologist at the University of Glasgow who studies heritage crime
- “But many of these objects are entangled with violent, exploitative, colonial histories”
With Iran war exit elusive, Trump aides vie to affect outcome
- Aides debate when and how to declare victory even as the conflict spreads across the Middle East
- In taking America to war, US President Donald Trump offered little explanation
WASHINGTON: A complex tug-of-war inside the White House is driving US President Donald Trump’s shifting public statements on the course of the Iran war, as aides debate when and how to declare victory even as the conflict spreads across the Middle East.
Some officials and advisers are warning Trump that surging gasoline prices could exact a political cost from the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, while some hawks are pressing the president to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic, according to interviews with a Trump adviser and others close to the deliberations.
Their observations to Reuters offer a previously unreported glimpse inside White House decision-making as it adjusts its approach to the biggest US military operation since the 2003 Iraq war.
Shifting messages, various internal viewpoints
The behind-the-scenes maneuvering underscores the high stakes Trump, who returned to office last year promising to avoid “stupid” military interventions, faces nearly two weeks after plunging the nation into a war that has rattled global financial markets and disrupted the international oil trade.
The jockeying for Trump’s ear is a feature of his presidency, but this time the consequences are a matter of war and peace in one of the world’s most volatile and economically critical regions.
Shifting from the sweeping goals he framed in launching the war on February 28, Trump in recent days has emphasized that he views the conflict as a limited campaign whose objectives have mostly been met.
But the message remains unclear to many, including the energy markets, which have lurched in both directions in response to Trump’s statements.
He told a campaign-style rally in Kentucky on Wednesday that “we won” the war, then abruptly pivoted: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”
Economic advisers and officials, including from the Treasury Department and the National Economic Council, have warned Trump that an oil shock and rising gasoline prices could quickly erode domestic support for the war, said the adviser and two others close to the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions.
Political advisers, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief James Blair, are making similar arguments, focusing on the political fallout from higher gas prices and urging Trump to define victory narrowly and signal the operation is limited and nearly finished, the sources said.
Pushing in the other direction are hawkish voices urging Trump to sustain military pressure on Iran, including Republican lawmakers such as US Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, and media commentators such as Mark Levin, according to people familiar with the matter.
They argue the US must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and respond forcefully to attacks on American troops and shipping.
A third force comes from Trump’s populist base and figures such as strategist Steve Bannon and right-wing television personality Tucker Carlson, who have been pressing him and his top aides to avoid getting dragged into another prolonged Middle East conflict.
“He is allowing the hawks to believe the campaign continues, wants markets to believe the war might end soon and his base to believe escalation will be limited,” the Trump adviser said.
Asked for comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement: “This story is based on gossip and speculation from anonymous sources who aren’t even in the room for any discussions with President Trump.
“The President is known for being a good listener and seeking the opinions of many people, but ultimately everyone knows he’s the final decision maker and his own best messenger,” she said. “The President’s entire team is focused on ensuring the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are fully achieved.”
Other people named for their roles in the deliberations did not immediately respond to Reuters’ questions.
Looking for an exit
In taking America to war, Trump offered little explanation, and the administration’s stated war aims have ranged from thwarting an imminent attack by Iran to crippling its nuclear program to replacing its government.
As he seeks an exit from an unpopular conflict, Trump is trying to juggle competing narratives that some critics say have complicated an already difficult situation, with Iran defiant despite the devastating US-Israeli air assault.
Top political aides and economic advisers, whose warnings before the war of the potential economic shock were largely ignored, appear to have played a major role in pushing Trump’s efforts this week to reassure skittish markets and contain rising oil and gas prices.
His public shift to downplaying the war’s impact, describing it as a “short-term excursion,” and his insistence that gas price hikes would be short-lived appeared aimed at calming fears of an open-ended conflict.
Some top aides have advised him to work toward a conclusion to the conflict that he can call a triumph, at least militarily, the sources said, even if much of the Iranian leadership survives, along with remnants of a nuclear program that the campaign was meant to target.
Wave after wave of US and Israeli air strikes have killed a number of top Iranian leaders among some 2,000 people overall – some as far away as Lebanon – devastated its ballistic missile arsenal, sunk much of its navy and degraded its ability to support armed proxies around the Middle East.
But the military achievements have been seriously undercut by Iran’s stepped-up attacks on oil tankers and transport facilities in the Gulf, driving up oil prices.
Trump has said he will decide when to end the campaign. He and his aides say they are far ahead of the four- to six-week timeframe Trump initially announced.
The shifting reasons for launching the conflict, which has spilled over into more than half a dozen other countries, have only made it more difficult to predict what comes next.
For their part, Iran’s rulers will claim victory, analysts say, for simply surviving the US-Israeli onslaught, especially after demonstrating their ability to fight back and inflict damage on Israel, the US and its allies.
Venezuela miscalculation
Critical to the war’s final trajectory will be the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil shipments, which normally traverses the narrow waterway, has come to a near-standstill. Iran in recent days has struck tankers in Iraqi waters and other ships near the strait, and the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to keep it shut.
If Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway pushes US gas prices high enough, that could increase political pressure on Trump to end the military campaign to help his Republican Party, which is defending narrow majorities in Congress in November’s midterm elections.
Trump has recently refrained from pushing the idea that the war seeks to topple the government in Tehran. US intelligence indicates that Iran’s leadership is not at risk of collapse anytime soon, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
At least some of the confusion over the war’s trajectory appears rooted in the quick US military success in Venezuela.
Since the start of the war, some aides have struggled to convince Trump that the Iran campaign was unlikely to unfold in the same way as the January 3 Venezuela raid that captured President Nicolas Maduro, according to another source familiar with the administration’s thinking.
That operation opened the way for Trump to coerce former Maduro loyalists into giving him considerable sway over the country’s vast oil reserves – without requiring extended US military action.
Iran, by contrast, has proved a much tougher, better-armed foe with an entrenched clerical and security establishment.
Experts have rejected claims by Trump aides that Iran had been within weeks of being able to produce a nuclear weapon, despite the president’s insistence in June that US-Israeli bombing had “obliterated” its nuclear program.
Most of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to have been buried by the June strikes, meaning the material potentially could be retrieved and purified to bomb grade. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons.
If the war drags on, American casualties mount and the economic costs multiply, some analysts say it could erode backing from Trump’s political base. But despite criticism from some supporters opposed to military interventions, members of his “Make America Great Again” movement have so far largely stayed with him on Iran.
“The MAGA base is going to give the president wiggle room,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.
