Is DEI to blame for the Louvre heist?

Police in Paris have arrested two men after the “heist of the century” at the Louvre museum. According to the French press, the pair were arrested separately as they prepared to leave the country on Saturday evening; both are in their 30s and from Seine-Saint-Denis, the sprawling suburb north of Paris. As yet there is no indication that police have recovered any of the crown jewels that were stolen from the museum in seven sensational minutes last Sunday. The search for them and the two other gang members goes on.

The 88 million euros ($102m) heist has been deeply embarrassing for France, and the fact that those responsible appear to be local villains as opposed to the international criminal masterminds that some had suggested will only further redden the Republic’s face.

Jordan Bardella, the right-hand man of Marine Le Pen, called the robbery a “national humiliation”, as did Marion Marechal, the niece of Le Pen and a former MP in her National Rally party

Marechal demanded that the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, and the head of security, Dominique Buffin, be relieved of their duties. Marechal claimed they had been appointed to their positions as “part of a policy to promote women… at the cost of sacrificing competence and jeopardizing our nation’s cultural heritage.”

There was much fanfare when Buffin was named last year as the first woman to head up the Louvre’s security. Profiling Buffin, the left-wing Le Monde claimed that she was sometimes mistaken by visitors for a gallery attendant as she went about her work in the museum. Tourists apparently couldn’t conceive that a woman was in charge of security with a staff of 1,100 under her command.

Laurence des Cars was appointed to her post in 2021, the first woman in the 230-year history of the Louvre. Her competency has come under scrutiny this week. It was reported in the press that des Cars has invested five times less money in security than was the case between 2006 and 2008. On the other hand she has splashed out nearly half a million euros on a new dining room.

Des Cars offered to resign in the wake of the heist but this was refused by the government. This is no surprise. Emmanuel Macron handpicked des Cars for the post of director and he has to stick by her or else his judgement might be called into question.

Macron has been a fervent supporter of DEI, or what is known in France as the “feminization” of society. Upon his election as president of the Republic in 2017 he appointed Florence Parly the minister of the armed forces. A socialist and career civil servant, Parly had no military background.

In March 2022, a month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, France’s top brass warned that they had enough ammunition for four days of high intensity combat. Parly left her post a few weeks later without much to show for her five years in office other than the “feminization” of the military.

In 2019 Parly launched an initiative to increase the number of women in the armed forces and she boasted that she would “double the proportion of women among generals by 2025”.
Her zeal encountered resistance among several senior military figures, who criticized her “political impatience”. In 2020 Parly blocked the publication of a promotion list because she was unhappy at the number of women on it.

France’s civil service has also been subjected to similar social engineering. In 2023 a law was passed that increased the quota for female appointments to senior and executive positions from 40 percent to 50 percent. As of 2027 there will be financial penalties for non-compliance.

This quota also applies, from January 2026, for appointments to ministerial cabinets and the cabinet of the President of the Republic.

Earlier this week a collective called Women of the Interior bemoaned the fact in their view there aren’t enough women employed in France’s Ministry of the Interior. They also regretted that female police numbers have slightly decreased.

Policing is not much fun in France, what with violence from Islamists, Antifa, anarchists, rioters and radical environmentalists. In 2023, there were 5,492 police officers injured in the line of duty, an average of 15 a day. Perhaps that is why numbers are down.

France’s “feminization” has been inspired by America’s DEI, but while the Trump administration has started dismantling the dogma, France is doubling down. There was a furious response earlier this year when the US Embassy in Paris sent letters to companies requesting they drop DEI programs.

The Ministry of Foreign Trade denounced the letters as “US interference” and proclaimed that France “will defend their companies, their consumers, but also their values”.

One wonders if France can defend its companies better than it can its crown jewels.