analogue

Reading the news reports, I see that the Minister of Culture does refer to "four boys and a girl" so apparently not adults. My guess is that they have nothing to do with banlieue youth because the girl would have been locked up at home in most circles. I'd say rich French kids.

The news says that some of the video images are very clear so I don't think that the crime will stay anonymous very long unless they are VERY rich kids or the children of politicians.

ira

Hi all,

A. The damage is easily repaired.

B. Did they enter the museum before opening time on Sunday? If so, how?

Viajero2

I read that this happened during the White Night( Nuit Blanche) celebration. It is an annual event, one night in October, when all of the museums, libraries, monuments and churches remain open, and district governments provide breakfast in the morning for all of the visitors who are still awake at dawn. For what I hear it is a big, drunken all-night festival.

This could had been anybody; to somehow exclude young French people from possibly been the authors of this horrendous act is such an anticuated perspective; wake up.

ira

Thanks, V.

sansman

so the museum was open, it now makes more sense to me.

audere_est_facere

French teenagers are no better or worse than their counterparts anywhere else, ie they're unbearable and wear stupid clothes.

kerouac

No, Viajero2, the Sleepless Night (Nuit Blanche) has nothing to do with the Nuit des Musées, when museums are open at night. A number of churches were open, as they were used for artistic installations that night. I was notably in the Madeleine at midnight, where suspended poem whisperers were holding glowing blue tubes to peoples' ears to tell them secret poems and also in Saint Eustache around 2 am, where an experimental percussionist was hypnotising several hundred people with his battery of about 50 instruments. Librairies open? No way. Free breakfast? That was only in 2002, the first year, when the mayor of Paris was stabbed by an anti-gay loony in the Hôtel de Ville. As for 'drunken' -- yes, this year there were plenty of drunks, but they were involved in the RWC quarter finals and had nothing to do with the Sleepless Night.

The Orsay was closed, as were all of the other museums Saturday night. However, according to the news on the radio a while ago, one of the side doors along the Seine was defective, and the museum officials knew this (so there is going to be hell to pay). It was possible to pull it open without using tools of any kind. The door immediately set off the alarm, and response was slow (so there is going to be hell to pay for that also). The intruders went through an antechamber and on into room 23, where they made their mess. Then one of the guys noticed the security camera and they got the hell out of there, but not before one of the guys elbowed (and not punched) the painting. Total time of their presence was about 4 minutes.

More soon.

Viajero2

As I said, I read this information.

Sue_xx_yy

There may be a silver lining to this cloud. The security hole that allowed this to happen could just as easily have been used by thieves - so now the alarm has been sounded, so to speak, one hopes it will be closed.

Girlspytravel

Yes, Kerouac-that is EXACTLY what I'm saying-that if the perpetrators are teenagers, then they more likely than not are immigrant teenagers-(not necessarily of the Mahgreh, either) and not native Parisian/French teenagers-because immigrant teenagers would have, more likely than not, less of a connection to their country and its patrimony than those whose heritage is native French-you may not like that assessment, but people don't like being faced with reality either-and the reality is, in any country where you have a disaffected minority population, that they are not going to feel the same, or have the same respect for the country's institutions as those who are native to the country-that's just a fact-and we see that expressed all over Europe, in Holland, in Britain, in Italy-everywhere.

audere_est_facere

Gipsyspygirl: Even by your own standards that post is completely moonbats. You want to lie down in a darkened room with a cold compress and some camomile tea.

But of course you're not a gipsy, you're not a spy and you're not a girl are you?

I bet you're a hairy backed 55 year old teamster from Detroit.

lmlweb

girlspytravel: so you're ready to point fingers at the most obviously "disassociated" youth without even waiting to see if any arrests are made. Let's all assume all immigrants are guilty until proven innocent.

sansman

yawn, drunken teenagers do stupid things. Do we have to make this immigrant attack?

sansman

otoh. when we go somewhere and bomb up a country and ruin all the buildings, let the museum get looted, not counting all the people, then we get upset when someone dents a picture, well I can see why a 'teen' would be disaffected.

Cimbrone

"immigrants would have less of a connection to a country and its patrimony"

girlspytravel, you have no idea what you're talking about. There are lots of angry, stupid teenagers of every nationality (French included) who wouldn't know the difference between a Monet and a marsmallow and who would love to elbow a priceless work of art.

321go

No, audere, it would be moonbats if she said Kate McCann did it.

audere_est_facere

If you really want to see the hairy backed teamster at it's most moonbats; get it onto the subject of Princess Di.

Viajero2

Members of minority groups constitute the highest percentage of young men and women serving in the U.S. military services.

.....Well, good thing that in the U.S. the "disaffected minority population" are the ones willing to put their mouth and their lives on the line for idiots like girlspy.....what an arse.

audere_est_facere

The hairy backed teamster will take any excuse to crowbar its self loathing and racism into a thread about lickle cute kittens if he can.

Ignore it - it's had more incarnations than the Dali Lama.

Momliz

girlspy, I am outraged - teenagers are teenagers (I know, I have worked in middle and high schools, I have 3 and know their friends, and was one) and they don't give a rats a@@ about their patrimony most of the time. They think at most 5 minutes into the future, so your racist (or classist, if that is a word) statement is ridiculous.
here is a link to an AP story in the Int'l Herald Trib:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...et-Damaged.php