France’s museums grapple with a wave of smash-and-grab thefts

レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast · Oct 10, 2026 · 1m

At a museum in eastern France, two men disguised with wigs used a sledgehammer and a hammer to smash a display case and make off with a 2,500-year-old gold necklace. The heist took under four minutes. In a smash-and-grab robbery at another French museum, three masked robbers stole 27 pieces of jewelry valued at more than 4.5 million euros ($5.2 million), busting through two doors to break in. Those thefts took place in July. A few weeks ago, thieves sliced through a fence and climbed through the window of a museum on the French Riviera and fled with two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir…